


/Jtil 










Class P* L "? 
Book _ / . o. 

Copyright^? 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 





Great Bear Island 










TO 

THE BEST FELLER I KNOW 
AND TO JOHN AND BABE 
WHO TAKE AFTER 
HER 


» 
































CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I 

Marching Orders .... 


PAGE 

1 

II 

Up River 


13 

III 

First Days — and a Fish! 


31 

IV 

Lunge Lake and the Time 

OF 



Waiting 


54 

V 

A Rescue 


76 

VI 

The Great Bear! .... 


89 

VII 

Reservationers Again 


102 

VIII 

The Keep and the Mound 


117 

IX 

The Twenty-Two .... 


130 

X 

The Bear’s Head .... 


145 

XI 

Museum and Fortress 


160 

XII 

The Beginning of the Battle 


174 

XIII 

The Battle Continued 


186 

XIV 

The Moat 


197 

XV 

Again at Bay 


211 

XVI 

The Twenty-Footer . 


221 


[vii] 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XVII Out of the Labyrinth . . . 228 

XVIII The Boom Once More . . . 240 

XIX Down-River 250 

XX Almost the Last 271 

XXI The Last 285 


[ viii ] 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


“You Wan’ One, Too?” He Asked. . Frontispiece 

PAGE 

“Camp — cots! Tents! Pots! Grub? Lots ! We’re 

the Ancient Order of the “ Argue-nots ” ! 30 

Another Hour and they were through the 

Second Layer 95 

Three of the Canoes were half filled with 

the Panic-stricken already 155 

Ninny was swimming like some Great Hunted 


Sea -otter 167 

Back into Safety 200 


They cached those Priceless Mound Relics 

in that Jungle of Cedars 215 v 

“Somebody Seems to have left Something in 

the Way” 248 


[ix] 



Great Bear Island 


CHAPTER ONE 


MARCHING ORDERS 

T was a warm, close evening in mid- 
July. In the “Club,” Bert, otherwise 
“Booky,” Gordon, sat hunched over that 
first of Smithsonian publications. Ancient 
Monuments of the Mississippi Valley. From 
time to time he tenderly lifted an axe- 
head, or rubbing stone, or a little dirt- 
brown pot from the cabinet beside him, 
and raptly compared it with one of the 
yellow old Squier woodcuts. 

On the other side of the room Frank Em- 
mett, more familiarly known as “Tools” 
because of his wholly remarkable ingenuity 
in using them, was putting varnish stain 
on a second set of cabinets. He had sus- 
pended them from the wall by a device 
that was one of his latest “little ideas.” 

[i] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


The Club had once been Doctor Gordon’s 
old driving shed. But since Christmas it 
had been lined with weather-felting and 
heated by a big box stove. It had been 
equipped with home-made “gym” mat- 
tresses, and furnished from the combined 
Gordon, Emmett, Tuttle, and Harrison 
attics and book-shelves. Those Indian 
relics that “Booky” was once more so 
fondly classifying came from that never- 
to-be-forgotten little island mound which 
the four had discovered on their expedition 
a hundred miles up the Wantebec River, 
the summer before. It was a small collec- 
tion, but there was no other in town that 
compared with it. And, altogether, the 
Club was such a combination of gymna- 
sium, library, and museum as should have 
lifted any four boys on earth to the su- 
preme height of happiness. 

It should have. But now, when they 
knew their river from Mill Bend to Lunge 
Lake, when they had learned exactly how 
[ 2 ] 


MARCHING ORDERS 


to do things, when they felt in every yearn- 
ing bone that if only they could get another 
chance at it they could find mounds and 
bring back treasure-trove worthy of a 
Smithsonian Report itself — such a second 
expedition was the one thing there seemed 
no prospect of their being able to make 
for the next five years. It was out of the 
question for Tools and Booky to go alone, 
and two weeks ago Bud Tuttle and Jack 
Harrison had begun their first summer’s 
work in the sugar-beet fields of South Falls. 

In the beet fields, too, such days as the 
present must be simply one long ten hours 
of baking, sweltering glare. How much 
more longingly and thirstingly, therefore, 
would the minds of Bud and Jack go back 
to the cool woods and waters of the North 
— to the channel where they used to get 
the pickerel, to the camp where they had 
seen the lynx; above all, to the bush-grown 
little island where they had found that one 
small mound! 


[ 3 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


Booky put down the battered old volume, 
and again he sighed immeasurably: “Say! 
Say, Toolsy! ” 

Tools sighed with him: “Yep, old man?” 

“Say, imagine finding something like 
the Serpent Mound up there!” 

“Or Fort Ancient! And, jimmy-o, one 
night last week I dreamed the four of us 
had got up there again somehow, and we’d 
located a mound that you could put a whole 
town on top of ! ” 

“Gosh, did you! And, say, I’ve been 
dreaming about Ninny Noggins again.” 

“Me, too. I did last week. I guess it’s 
because they’ve been putting that stuff 
about him in the Herald all the time.” 

For more than a year Ninny Noggins 
had been better known as the “wild man.” 
But, three years before, no one had guessed 
that he was ever to be called by such a 
name. He had been simply Ninny, the 
big, shiftless, crazy-witted but always good- 
natured squatter on Hunter’s Point. The 
[ 4 ] 


MARCHING ORDERS 


cruel stupidity that had accused him of 
starting the great fire of 1910 had so fright- 
ened him that he had ended by fleeing, 
terror-stricken, into the north woods. And 
there he had become the “wild man.” 
How he had been living during those last 
three years, no one knew. No tale had 
come down to Wantebec of what he must 
have suffered during the three long freezing 
and starving winters. According to report 
he had managed to get together some cast- 
off traps and snares; and with an old bow 
which he had picked up at the Lunge Lake 
Reservation he had learned to shoot like 
a savage. When the boys had encountered 
him, the summer before, a few miles below 
the lake, for all his quickness and his 
tremendous strength, he had seemed almost 
as inoffensive and as incapable of taking 
any real care of himself as some great 
child. 

And of late the town had been hearing 
much of him. Since early June something 
[5] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


had been leading him to leave the semi- 
safety of his haunts in the woods. Every 
week or two he had been making his appear- 
ance about the spruce cutters’ shanties at 
Loggers’ Inlet. And the spirit of “new 
journalism” in the Wantebec Herald had 
been seizing upon him as the most attractive 
of humorous material. Uncle Billy Mc- 
Leash, who twice a month carried the mail 
up and down the river, was the innocent 
provider of the news items in the case. 
And the Herald's smart young man from 
Detroit worked them up, with the help of 
one of the town barbers, for his “Saturday 
Slapsticks.” 

In the issue of June the twenty-ninth, 
the story was top-columned of how Jean 
Baptiste — or “Jombateest” — the shanty 
cook, had succeeded in feeding Ninny an 
apple-turnover filled with axle-grease. 

The “Slapstick” of the week following 
was devoted to telling of Ninny’s unfor- 
tunate adventure with the shanty shotgun 
[ 6 ] 


MARCHING ORDERS 


— “which, as it happened, had just been 
loaded with peas and salt.” The week 
after, as told in the Herald , another spruce- 
camp worthy — “Cash-down” Corkery — 
had celebrated the Fourth by getting 
“the world’s only genuine, stamped-in-the- 
bottle wild man” to trade him his entire 
year’s take of peltries for six boxes of safety 
matches — that wouldn’t strike. 

It was that week, too, that a party of 
young Indians from the Reservation, “who 
had been making life interesting for Ninny 
from the beginning,” had discovered and 
carried off his store of winter bedding. 
“And it looked like it might be a hard 
winter for wild men altogether.” 

Rut not three days later, according to 
the “Slapsticks,” Ninny had come down 
and was hanging about Loggers’ Inlet again. 
This time the gang had got him into an 
empty shanty, bolted the door, and roared 
down the chimney at him with a mega- 
phone till he had plunged, yelling, 
[ 7 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


through a window, and, as the Herald's 
humorist told it, he “had left a trail of 
screeches and broken glass and blood 
behind him, that you could follow half- 
way round the lake!” - 

The boys did not read those stories at all. 
There may have been others who read and 
laughed at them. But what is certain is 
that there were at least two old citizens of 
Wantebec, who, as story followed story, 
found it gradually more difficult to contain 
themselves. And when Tools’ father, Judge 
Emmett, read that last one, he contained 
himself no longer. With the Herald broken 
and crumpled in his hand, he started for 
Dr. Gordon’s, and the doctor, for his 
part, met him half-way. 

“Gordon, have you — have you seen 
this week’s? ” 

“I’ve seen it, and my fingers have been 
itching for my buggy whip ever since!” 

“And do you realize, too, why the poor 
miserable creature has been coming back, 
[ 8 ] 


MARCHING ORDERS 


and back, and back to the shanties like 
this ? It’s because it was somewhere there- 
abouts that he met the boys last summer, 
and was shown the only Christian kindness 
he’s had in the last three years! And now 
this summer he has some wretched, crack- 
brained hope of finding them up there 
again.” 

“There doesn’t seem much doubt of 
that,” said the doctor. “But what can 
we do, Judge?” 

“I made up my mind five minutes ago 
what we can do. Where are the boys?” 

“Do you mean the Four, as they call 
themselves? Why, Bud Tuttle and Jack 
Harrison are over at South Falls, working 
in the beet fields, I think. Your Frank 
and my Bert are back there in their Club, 
if they’re where they generally are. But I 
don’t just see — ” 

“Then they’ll do very well to begin with, ” 
and the judge pushed on furiously down 
the walk. 


[ 9 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


Meanwhile those two younger Argonauts 
of the Four, still holding down the Club 
alone, had let their minds go hankering 
back to that subject of subjects once more. 

Again Booky had set down his Indian 
pot. He had had still another idea. “Say, 
if we hit it for South Falls, too, and all of 
us put in a month on the beets together, 
working like sin, too, don’t you think that 
that might get them off for part of August, 
anyway?” 

Tools shook his head despondingly. “No, 
no, I sort of put that proposition up to Dad 
right when school was closing, but I could 
tell, all right, that he couldn’t see it.” 

“No, and I guess I know mine wouldn’t, 
either. But, jinks, when you mind that 
last year you might say that we never 
really had any idea of the chance we were 
getting!” 

“That’s right.” And Tools opened 
Jack’s last letter again: 

“No use kicking,” it read. “This beet 

[ 10 ] 


MARCHING ORDERS 


work is our only chance at another high school 
term in the fall, and Bud and I are both tell- 
ing ourselves we’re dead lucky to get it.” 

“They’re the real old stuff, all right!” 

“They’re good enough for me. They 
wouldn’t do any kicking if they had it twice 
as hard.” And then once more, and for 
perhaps the twentieth time, Tools in his 
turn treated himself to the hollow pleasures 
of the imagination. 

“But, gosh,” he said, “ only imagine how 
it’d feel! Of course I know all right that 
it couldn’t happen — but just supposing 
it could — imagine how it’d feel if some- 
body was to come in, right while we’re 
talking now, say, and tell us there was a 
job that’d start the whole four of us up 

river next week! Who’s that? I 

thought I heard — ” 

He was further interrupted by the judge’s 
thumping and imperative double knock. 
And it was followed immediately by the 
judge in person. 


[ 11 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


“We want you boys,” he said, “Jack 
Harrison and Bud Tuttle along with you, 
to get ready to go up to Lunge Lake 
again!” 

“And this time,” said the doctor, “we 
want you to bring Ninny Noggins down 
with you!” 


[ 12 ] 


CHAPTER TWO 


UPRIVER! 


^HE doctor had joined in that most 
breath-taking of marching orders; 
but it must be said that so far the 
judge seemed to be supplying the major 
part of the confidence. 

“But — but we must remember,” said 
the doctor, “that the sheriff — Hynes, 
you know — failed when he went up there 
and tried to get hold of him.” 

“That was because Ninny was afraid of 
him,” said the old man, fiercely. “By this 
time he’s afraid of any and all of us who 
are grown up, and with every reason. But 
he’d know the boys again. You may be 
sure he hasn’t forgotten that they were 
good to him before. They could simply 
stay up there till they got in touch with 
him — for my part I don’t care if it takes 
[ 13 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


all summer — and once they do, why, I 
don’t believe they’d have to do much more 
than make a place for him in the stern of 
their boat and turn back down-stream!” 

“All right. All right. I’m sure I’m 
heart and soul in favor of their chancing 
it.” 

Meanwhile both Tools and Booky still 
sat speechless. They wanted to be abso- 
lutely sure that they were hearing aright. 
Besides, the judge mightn’t know that Bud 
and Jack were over at South Falls. 

But Tools mustered up the courage to 
tell him now. “They’ve got a weeding 
job,” he said, “and I think it’s going to 
take them all summer.” 

“It’s going to take them just till I can 
get word to them over the telephone to- 
night.” The judge snapped it out as if 
he were taking a bite out of him. 

“But,” Booky ventured, “they’ll need 
the money. They’ve got to have it for 
their fees next fall.” 

[ 14 ] 


UP RIVER 


It was well that Booky’s father was 
there, or he might have had a piece snapped 
out of him as well. As it was: “Do you 
think, young man,” said the judge, “that 
we haven’t thought about that? I’ll see 
that they don’t lose any money by it. I’ll 
provide for the matter of any fees that 
they’ll be needing.” 

“With my assistance, Judge, with my 
assistance,” the doctor put in, with a little 
laugh. 

“Very good, sir. I’ll be very glad to 
have it. All I know is that I can’t stand 
any more — I’ve reached the end of this /” 
and twisting that crumped Herald , which 
he still carried like a baton, into a knot, 
he flung it through the open window. 

“Now,” he said to Tools, “maybe you 
can tell me how I can get to your friends 
by ’phone?” 

Tools could tell him very easily. For 
by this time — the sun was falling low — 
Bud and Jack would be sitting somewhere 
[ 15 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


in the shade of that South Falls board- 
ing-house. Within five minutes he and 
Booky were speaking to them. And by 
the end of another five minutes every- 
thing was settled! 

It was somewhat sobering, of course, to 
have been given that mission of finding 
and bringing Ninny back. In one way it 
was not exactly the same as going up the 
Wantebec merely to look for prehistoric 
mounds. 

But, as Doctor Gordon pointed out, 
everything wouldn’t be done in a day. 
It was very unlikely that they would meet 
with Ninny the first hour they struck camp. 
To plunge into the bush with the idea of 
finding him would be craziness. They 
would simply have to choose the likeliest 
place, pitch camp, and wait. While they 
were waiting, whether it was one week or 
four, there was no reason in the world why 
they shouldn’t hunt for mounds from sun- 
116 ] 


UP RIVER 


rise till dewy eve, and when they had 
found Ninny it mightn’t be the best wisdom 
in the world to try to rush back with him 
at once. Take it altogether, they would 
very probably have all the time up river 
that they needed. 

“Only remember,” he added, “Ninny 
must always be the first consideration.” 

They gave him their word for it. 

“Another thing, too,” said the judge, 
“those Lunge Lake islands now belong to 
Major Maggs.” 

“But we could ask him to let us dig, 
provided we dug scientifically,” argued 
Booky, a little nervously, “and that’s 
all we’d be digging for.” 

The judge snorted a bit. But, “Oh, 
certainly, certainly!” he said. 

And for his part, Doctor Gordon went 
along with them to the major’s real estate 
office and spoke for them. 

Major Maggs was Wantebec’s “pros- 
perity promoter,” but he was a “pro- 
[ 17 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


moter” who had never deceived any one 
but his own unquenchably sanguine self. 
And at that, too, one lobe of his brain 
managed to preserve a steady and unlooked- 
for balance which always kept him in a 
state of serai-prosperity, at least. A few 
months before — when the promise of car 
shops for North Wantebec and a furniture 
factory for Mill Bend had immediately 
convinced the major that “ within five years, 
sir, or at latest ten, Wantebec would be 
the Chicago of the state!” — he had at a 
single sweep projected his eye a hundred 
miles to the north and bought up the whole 
tangled and unsurveyed, rock-and-ever- 
green archipelago in Lunge Lake. 

“For on the day when Wantebec does 
become a second Chicago,” he asseverated, 
“there is one thing that will be an instant 
crying necessity, and that is, a great 
summer resort, a really great summer re- 
sort within ready access, within ready access 
of — of any one desiring to go to a summer 
[ 18 ] 


UP RIVER 


resort ! There will come a time, gentlemen, ” 
(if you allowed the major to talk to you 
long enough for him to get his hands 
clutched together under his coat-tails, he 
always ended by addressing you as “gen- 
tlemen”) “and it will be here before we 
realize it, when those Lunge Lake islands 
will be at once the summer home of Greater 
Wantebec and the Chautauqua of the 
North West!” 

In the meantime those islands were a 
Chautauqua with an Indian reservation 
on one side, and a very un-Chautauqua-like 
camp of spruce cutters on the other; and 
the major may have had some secret feeling 
that if the archipelago was to achieve its 
manifest destiny “before you realized it,” 
the initial hand of civilization could not 
be laid upon it too soon. At any rate he 
not only granted the expedition the broadest 
charter rights to explore and dig, but he 
“guaranteed furthermore to bring any dis- 
coveries they should make to the attention 
[ 19 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


of the proper authorities at Washington. 
For, without giving you all my reasons for 
so thinking, gentlemen,” he concluded im- 
pressively, “it would not in the least surprise 
me if the small but remarkable mound which 
you have already located should prove to 
be the first of further discoveries ranking 
among the most extraordinary ever made 
upon this continent.” 

Two days later Jack and Bud came up 
from South Falls, and the expedition pro- 
ceeded to the equipment stage. 

It was to go in the “Twenty-footer” — 
the skiff that was the particular pride of 
Frank Emmett’s big brother, Charlie. She 
was the strongest, fastest, daintiest bit of 
cedar and walnut-trim on the river. She 
had rowlocks for four pair of oars. And 
hence, when you used only two pair, but 
arranged them alternately, a crew of four 
could take her through the water like a 
racing shell. As for steering, you might 
say she steered herself. In addition to 
[ 20 ] 


UP RIVER 


which, she possessed a system of lockers, 
big and little, bow, stern, and amidships, 
that were, taken together, only a little less 
commodious than a wardrobe trunk, and, 
taken singly, rather more fascinating than 
a chest full of secret drawers. 

With the idea of filling those lockers 
to the best advantage, the four were now 
nightly resolving themselves into a commit- 
tee on supplies. The doctor greatly simpli- 
fied their planning by having the stern 
lockers measured for a series of tin cases, 
in which to keep their “commissariat.” 

“In proportion as you empty them,” 
he explained just a bit facetiously, “you 
can fill them up with the proceeds of your 
mound-hunting.” 

Oatmeal and flour, a little baking-powder, 
salt, sugar, coffee, and bacon, all these, the 
old reliables, went without saying, and 
they would take what bread they could. 
But they might be away six weeks, and 
needless to say they could not take enough. 

[ 21 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


Whereupon the judge remembered that, 
when as a boy he had run away to sea from 
Gloucester, he had been amazed at the 
filling and sustaining powers of pilot biscuit, 
and he now insisted upon sending to New 
York the same day for twenty -five pounds 
of them. 

“Not a word now!” he shut them up. 
“You’ll find that properly soaked in water, 
and eaten with a little salt, two of them 
will make you a good square meal; and 
before you get back, I promise you you’ll 
be abundantly thankful that I thought of 
them. ” 

A general, and highly disrespectful mis- 
pronunciation of their club name — the 
“Argonauts” — had for the last year given 
the Four a second appellation — the “ Argue- 
nots,” and they wisely lived up to the 
appellation when they were talking to the 
judge. But, in a way, to freight twenty- 
five pounds of pilot biscuit along with them 
was to lose sight of the fact that they were 
[ 22 ] 


UP RIVER 


taking their bass rods; and if the waters 
of the Upper Wantebec and Lunge Lake 
didn’t do their share towards keeping the 
pantry full, they had fallen off greatly from 
what they used to be! 

It was also to lose sight of the fact that 
Jack was taking the “Twenty -two,” the 
one weakness of that otherwise rather 
serious and grown-up-minded youth. The 
“Twenty-two” was a worn and dingy little 
old Flobert, for which her original owner 
may possibly have paid three dollars. She 
carried a bullet not much larger or more 
dangerous than a duck-shot. Her barrel 
was constantly becoming “plugged,” this 
being no doubt attributable to some marked 
originality in her rifling. Her sights shifted 
slightly every time she was jolted, and 
accordingly required to be readjusted as 
frequently as a compass seems to require 
to be boxed. 

“But you don’t go by her sights, anyway,” 
Jack contended, “and it’s just that, too, 
[ 23 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


that gives her her value. She teaches a 
fellow to shoot free arm.” 

Enough that we have shown that the 
“Twenty-two” could boast of qualities 
possessed by no other gun on earth. It 
had been no more than her just deserts that 
had made her one of the Club’s veritable 
mascots. And old Job Johnson, the ancient 
river-man who kept the boat-house, oiled 
that “Twenty -two,” and tightened her 
sights and bored her out once more. 

It was old Job, too, who showed the 
Four how to roll and strap their sleeping- 
bags, filled with their “stuff,” into genuine 
coureur de bois packs, and how to arrange 
them across their shoulders so as to get 
the weight balanced right. 4 4 Once do that,’ ’ 
he said, 44 and you could take a two-mile 
portage carryin’ your own weight, and 
never damp a feather.” 

When, likewise, Job discovered that they 
were going north without a supply of “six- 
inchers,” he compelled them forthwith and 
[ 24 ] 


UP RIVER 


without denial to accept several pounds of 
his own. One might infer from old Job 
that you might find yourself in the bush 
without food, roof, or sense of direction, 
but if you only had an axe, a fishing line, 
and six-inch spikes enough, it would be 
merely a matter of a day or two till you 
were living in a hotel and having your 
meals sent up. 

Those sleeping-bags were simply good 
heavy gray blankets, double length, turned 
end to end, stitched strongly down the 
sides, and then turned inside out. The 
doctor had an extra blanket or two, as well 
as a few rough clothes, put in for Ninny. 
For themselves, when it came to clothes, 
the Four were taking a minimum. Old 
shoes and stockings, sweaters, knickers, 
and bathing suits — to serve as underwear 
— if these weren’t enough, they would have 
to be. Mrs. Tuttle and Mrs. Harrison, 
with whom money was very much a con- 
sideration, made Bud and Jack their 
[ 25 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


knickers by the simple and inexpensive 
method of shearing off their first old “longs” 
at the knees, banding them up, and attach- 
ing belt straps; and remarkably good 
knickers they made. 

But there was still the bulk of their stuff 
to get together. In the matter of a tent, 
they settled on Booky’s new one, though 
it was a little smaller than the one they’d 
had the year before. Its poles they left 
behind. Good enough substitutes could be 
cut anywhere in fifteen minutes. They took 
two spades and four trowels for the digging. 
Bud put in his folding camp-stove. Into 
the long forward lockers of the Twenty- 
footer went their cooking gear and tin dishes, 
a carving knife and a hand-axe, a candle 
lantern and two boxes of candles, a coil of 
half -inch rope and Jack’s climbing spurs. 

They had agreed to take only absolute 
necessities, but with Tools it went with- 
out saying that this included his camera. 
“Jinks,” he said, “supposing we make a 
[ 26 ] 


UP RIVER 


find — we’ll have to have photographs 
of it!” 

In that conscientious and scientific atti- 
tude he was strongly supported by Booky. 
The photographer also took along a box 
of magnesium flashes — “ because they 
might make their find at night.” This on 
the face of it was improbable, and just 
why it should have been necessary to in- 
clude therewith a cone of “red fire,” left 
over from the Fourth, Tools could hardly 
have explained with clearness himself. 

“But,” as he said again, “you know these 
things always come in somewhere.” 

It was no doubt with the same idea that 
Booky had covertly filled all the locker 
space around that camera with blue and 
dark-brown Archaeological Reports. 

On the other hand, remembering Ninny’s 
fondness for honey, in one of their tin cases 
the boys had stowed two fat pound combs 
from the best of Mr. Tuttle’s patent hives. 
They would serve to renew confidence and 

[Vt] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


friendship if nothing else would. For let 
no one think the real purpose of the expedi- 
tion was forgotten. First, last, and always, 
it was going to be Ninny first! 

By Wednesday morning they were ready. 
They got away about half -past ten. The 
Twenty-footer had been loaded in the quiet 
slip beside old Job’s boat-house, and for the 
last time he helped them, and the little knot 
of fathers and big brothers looked her over. 
But everything was shipshape, everything 
in its place, and every locker crammed. 
There was a minute or two of final hand- 
grips, and the Four stepped aboard. 

The judge felt that the occasion called 
for something of judicial sternness. “Re- 
member, now, remember,” he said, “you’re 
not going as so many youngsters, but on 
your honor and responsibility.” 

The doctor took a much more confident 
view of things. “Oh, I think they’re going 
to remember, all right,” he said. “And — 
Jack,” — he tried to hit him with a neatly 
[ 28 ] 


UP RIVER 


pitched little Red Astrachan, — “you. see to 
it that that son of mine, Bert, there, does 
an extra share of the rowing. He’s not 
sitting on an Archaeological Report at the 
present moment, is he? I can see plainly 
that you’re going to be the leader. You 
make that young bookworm work.” 

Booky thought of what was in that for- 
ward locker, and he became uncommonly red. 

“Well, now, I think they’re not going to 
disappoint us,” said Bud’s father, Mr. 
Tuttle, a nervous little man — and more 
nervous at finding himself standing beside 
the judge. 

The current drew the boat further and 
further out. The four oars swung back, 
crisply feathering. Old Job raised his Win- 
chester repeater. The departure must be 
made official. 

“Are you ready?” 

“Let her go!” 

And three times he pumped the trigger. 
Whang! Bang! Whang! 

[ 29 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


Following the triple report, and almost 
like a series of reports itself, went up the 
new Club yell: 

“ Camp — cots ! 

Tents! Pots! 

Grub? Lots I 

We’re the ancient order 

Of the Argue-nots / 

And they were off! 

To the town at large, it was simply a 
fishing trip. No one outside of their own 
people knew they intended going above 
Ragged Rapids. But to the Four it was 
to be a Stanley Relief, and a Mycenaean 
Exploring expedition all in one! 

Yes, and it was to be a great deal more 
than that. Could any of those four fathers 
have been given even a partial glimpse of 
what that next month up the Wantebec 
was to contain, it was an expedition which 
would never have left that boat-house 
wharf at all! 


[ 30 ] 




- 







CHAPTER THREE 

FIRST DAYS— AND A FISH! 



HEAD of them stretched the five 


winding miles of river and the 


^ ^ crooked length of Eleven Mile 

Lake, which together were to make up the 
first day’s schedule. It was a good long 
run, but the fresh morning sun was not 
too hot, and from behind them there came 
a glorious, snapping breeze, which almost 
neutralized the current. Not one of the 
Four but felt a something within him, a 
kind of joyous, bursting strength, which 
seemed capable of pulling the Twenty-footer 
up a mill-race. 

At least all of them felt that way for 
the first hour or two, and then they be- 
gan to feel that they might just as well 
take things at a more leisurely gait. They 
reminded themselves that after all they 


[ 31 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


had several weeks ahead in which to try 
themselves; and in the case of Booky, 
his palms had begun to pink up noticeably 
already. When Jack saw that, contrary to 
the doctor’s instructions, he made Booky 
and Tools drop their oars for awhile. 
Tools shipped the rudder and steered, and 
Bud, with Jack stroking, rowed pairs. 

But all the while that following breeze 
from the south was freshening. When they 
entered Eleven Mile they got the full 
strength of it, and with it came from 
Tools’ ever fertile mind his first “idea.” 
Why not sail? They hadn’t any sail with 
them, nor any mast; but little things 
like that shouldn’t make any difference. 
At Tools’ ingenious suggestion, they got 
out the lightest of the blankets, lashed it 
to a pair of oars just below the blades and 
above the thole pins, lashed lines above the 
upper blanket ties again, making the same 
fast by a running noose about the thwarts 
furthest aft. That gave them two masts, 
[ 32 ] 


FIRST DA YS 


with a sail stretched between, and to 
“step” those masts, all they had to do was 
to drive their butts firmly down among the 
remaining rolls of bedding. In ten minutes 
that blanket was straining and bellying 
as if it had been intended for such lateen 
service from the beginning. They were 
ascending Eleven Mile hand over fist, with- 
out even the necessity of fanning them- 
selves. Bud climbed up forward to act as 
lookout man. Jack and Tools looked after 
the lines, and Booky in the steersman’s 
seat contemplated a double row of what 
must soon have been fine large blisters. 

“ Good egg ! ” he said blissfully, and turned 
to survey the wake they were leaving. 

“Two or three good eggs!” said Tools. 

“A whole nest of them!” said Jack. 

“What’s more,” added the bookworm, 
“it’d be a sin and a shame to let such a boss 
sail as that pull only us. So I’m going to 
make it pull a trolling line as well.” 

It was evident that he must have had 
[ 33 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


such intention in view when he had loaded 
his particular locker in the stern sheets, 
for he had left one of their new sixty-yard 
lengths of good fine-wove cotton twist 
almost at the top of it. There was precious 
little likelihood, of course, of their catching 
anything with the troll in Eleven Mile; 
its reputation was gone for everything but 
bass and mud cat, but, as Booky had 
reminded them, they weren’t pulling the 
boat, and it was always worth while spinning 
a spoon merely on a chance. The glittering 
little “ wash-board” was soon baptized, 
and kicking merrily in the swirls and eddies 
a hundred and fifty feet behind. 

At Fish Island they lowered sail and put 
in for lunch, but they made it a cold 
lunch and a rapid one. For that following 
breeze was altogether too valuable for any 
short-sighted sacrificing. But, when they 
shoved out again, it was stronger, if any- 
thing, than ever. They could see the end 
of the lake, now. They could begin to 


FIRST DAYS 


believe that Half-Mile Carry would be only 
an incident. They would do that famous 
portage between breezes — it would merely 
give them an opportunity to get the kinks 
out of their legs, and then they’d go right 
on to Loon Chute before supper. 

“Booky,” said Tools, “dig a book out 
of the library and read us something. I’ll 
hold the troll for awhile.” 

“Sure. Nothing I’d like bett — ” 

“Gosh!” 

It was Bud, the lookout, who had said 
that. And now, “Look, fellows, look!” 
he followed, in the same almost agonized 
whisper. 

They could just see that he was trying 
to indicate something to starboard, and 
then, as the sail ceased to mask it from 
them, they saw for themselves. A good 
three inches from the surface there slant- 
ingly projected the head of a muskellunge 
that would be big for anything they might 
hope to catch in Lunge Lake itself! And 
[ 35 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


the monster did not seem in the least afraid 
of them. According to the stories told by 
old fishermen, when a ’lunge “ gets lost,” 
he takes this method of finding himself, 
which is a geographical improbability on 
the face of it. In any case this father of 
’lunges was showing neither hurry nor 
anxiety, and the Twenty -footer passed 
so close to him that they could almost have 
belted him with an oar. 

“Oh, say!" 

“Oh, heave something at him!” 

Jack tried desperately to get to his “rifle.” 
The sail went down on top of Bud, but 
he only climbed from under to get another 
look from the bow. 

“Oh, aunty, what’ll we do?” 

“We can’t do a thing!” 

Even while they were speaking the long, 
green, wolf-like head dropped coolly out 
of sight again. One chance alone remained. 
Booky was going hard to starboard with 
his rudder line. He could at least bring 
[ 36 ] 


FIRST DA YS 


his still-spinning spoon somewhere over that 
ring of ripples, and four pairs of eyes 
watched it achingly. As noiselessly as he 
could, Jack got his oars in again. With the 
sail down, something must be done to keep 
the line up. As it was, for a moment that 
glinting nickel dropped out of sight. An- 
other five seconds — another two would 
decide it! 

“No use! Too bad! But we — ” 

“Wheel” Booky was lifted half out of 
his seat by the jerk. The line zipped saw- 
ing along the gunwale. “Jinks, get the 
rudder out; fellows, get the rudder out! 
We’ve got him!” 

Tools plunged for the rudder, almost 
taking a header. But he got it out, and 
back upon the sail, where it would be clear 
of trouble. And Jack, whipping his oars in, 
prepared to use one of them as a paddle — 
if necessary, as a gaffing club. 

“Give him line!” he yelled. 

“Give him all he needs!” yelled Bud. 

[ 37 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


“As long as he doesn’t get any slack!” 
came from Tools. “Fasten your reel to 
a thwart or something!” 

And with that, twenty-five yards behind 
them, there was a surging whoosh ! Four 
feet — almost five — of mottled, watery 
olive-green shot bow-like into the air; for 
one dazzling moment showed white as it 
turned half over, and then struck the water 
flat on with the crack of an ox whip ! 

“Oh, mommer! Oh, deliriousness! Oh 
— ” This time Booky got a jerk that nearly 
fetched him overboard. Indeed, being the 
smallest, and the only unathletic member 
of the Four, it was an even toss-up if he 
could hold that ’lunge of ’lunges, when the 
long fight came. But, while he made no 
motion to give up the line, there was not 
one of the other three who could have been 
paid to suggest asking him to give it up. 

“Stay with it, old man, stay with it!” 
encouraged Bud. “You’re sure in for the 
time of your life!” 

[ 38 ] 


FIRST DA YS 


Booky gasped and gasped again, as if 
the water had closed over him along with 
the fish. He got another jerk, and another. 
It was like holding the handles of a battery ! 

“Play him! Play him!” Jack swept 
the Twenty-footer around with a swashing 
roll. She answered to the paddle like a 
birch-bark, or they would have had no 
chance at all. 

But now the great “fighter fish” was 
making furiously off in the direction of 
Sunken Meadows. 

“Jinks, we can’t let him get into them!” 

“Them” referred to the tangle of old 
water-logged trees and brush that made up 
the under-surface portion of the Meadows. 
“Once let him get a turn of the line around 
a root !” 

“I’ll try to take some in on him,” said 
Booky, painfully. “Maybe that’ll turn 
him.” 

But, considering that Booky’s all too soft 
and pinky palms had already begun to blister 
[ 39 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


from the oars, what punishment were they 
not receiving now ! He said nothing. For 
minute after minute he tried to pull a 
little line in. And now he gained a foot, 
now lost it in that choking tug-of-war. 
But the strength of the monster — its very 
fury — was plainly beginning to go to his 
nerves, like some kind of watery buck fever. 
Every moment, too, was now bringing them 
nearer the Meadows. And then, to his 
honor, when he saw the possibility of his 
losing them that fish, he gave up at once. 

“You take it, Jack,” he said; “I guess 
I’m not his size!” 

“Sure you are, old boy, sure!” But in 
the same moment Jack caught the twist 
from him. And Bud relieved him at the 
paddle. 

It was time that line was in new and 
stronger and unwearied hands. Even so, 
only all Bud’s strength backing water kept 
them away from a first big outpost snag. 

Bud backed till it looked as if he were 
[ 40 ] 


FIRST DA YS 


going to split the paddle blade. And shov- 
ing his jaw out, Jack held the line where 
it was. Good as they knew that cotton 
twist to be — more reliable than any silk 
for a long battle — he did not venture to 
make his fight under that double tension. 
But this, at any rate, the quarry seemed 
to realize: the Sunken Meadow game was 
up. And he showed his feelings in the 
only way he knew. 

Whoosh! This time he snapped his jaws 
together in the air as he made his jump! 

“ Jinks!” 

“He’ll go twenty -five if he’ll go a pound,” 
whispered Bud, fairly overawed. “Say, I 
guess we’ll all of us get our turn at him, 
before we’re through with it.” 

“I think likely you will,” said Jack. 
Already the perspiration hung from his 
temples and nose and chin in drops. And 
he was yet to try to do more than hold the 
line where it had been. 

“He wants to tow us,” he said; “and it 
[ 41 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


suits me all right. I feel as if I needed a 
few minutes to get on to his curves!” 

The great fish was towing them ! And — 
though it must be said that the wind was 
with him, too — for a hundred yards he 
kept it up indomitably. 

“Say,” said Jack, “I like you. If I was 
a ’lunge you’re just the kind I’d like to be! 
You’re the goods, no mortal doubt of it! 
But you needn’t take the hands right off 
me. Wow!” 

Then, with another jump, once more all 
regular conversation ended ! 

Up till then they had been in “green 
water.” Now, here and there ahead of 
them, it was a mottled green, the color of 
the great lucius himself. 

“We’re getting into bass-weed,” said 
Bud. “How’ll that shape up for him?” 

“A heap sight — better — than it will 
for us!” Every pause had meant a jerk. 
The hot sweat ran down Jack’s face and 
neck and soaked into the collar of his shirt. 

[ 42 ] 


FIRST DAYS 


For a moment he had to give line. But it 
was only because his fingers, feeling as if 
they were cut half through already, wouldn’t 
admit of his doing anything else. 

Yet, whatever advantage their fish might 
have taken from the bass-weed, he had 
turned and was breaking for the breadth 
of the lake again. And every minute he 
was fighting like a rabid bulldog. By this 
time Jack had sweat in both his eyes. 

“How you toughin’ it, JockyP Supposing 
I take it now? ” Bud decided to speak at last. 

And he had spoken at the proper moment. 
Jack smiled sorely. “Oh, I’m not proud, 
at all. All I want — is to make sure we 
don’t lose him ! ” The line was shoved along 
to the rashly waiting third victim! 

Bud’s story was. soon told. His desire 
to hold the battery lasted till they had 
rounded one of the rocky little islands in 
mid-channel. And the look of astonish- 
ment his face assumed from the first gave 
place only to one of growing torture. 

[ 43 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


“Oh, lordy!” he said. “Oh, skids! But 
— I’m — not giving — him — anything ! ” 
And he braced himself anew and tried un- 
happily to set his teeth. “ Great Eli ! Say, 
how long does this sort of thing generally 
last?” 

“I’ve heard of it lasting two hours,” 
said Jack. “Sometimes three or four.” 

Again the fish went about — the line 
ripped the water into a little fin — and he 
started for Old Channel. 

Booky was now in the bow, and he began 
to watch the water anxiously again. Where, 
a few minutes before, it had been mottled, 
it was beginning to yellow in streaks and 
patches. 

“It’s shoaling, fellows,” he warned them; 
“It’s shoaling. I mind we hit the sand 
bars somewhere around here, last summer!” 

The others didn’t hear him. Bud was too 
palpably nearing his finish. Another two 
minutes of that diabolical jig-saw and pulley- 
hauling was going to be enough for him! 

[ 44 ] 


FIRST DA YS 


But “Me next!” said Tools, with the 
courage of him who has not as yet had his 
experience. “And I’ve got a little idea, 
too.” In his turn he had found his way to 
the stern. 

“Sure! What’d Toolsy be without his 
ideas!” 

“I’m going to kneel. It’ll let me be high 
enough to — to sort of see things.” 

“Anything — to — oblige!” said the af- 
flicted Bud. The line ran down the gun- 
wale of itself, and Tools caught it as it 
burned across his wrist. “Say, it’s getting 
shallo — ” 

He had caught the line, he had risen upon 
his knees, but only then did he get full 
knowledge of what that fish could do! It 
was out of the question for him to let go, 
of course, and he went straight over the 
stern as if hoisted from behind ! Jack drove 
in his steering oar. Bud clutched for 
another. 

“Hold her there, fellows, hold her there!” 

[ 45 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


But there was really no great cause for 
alarm. The water, as they forthwith had 
the best of proof, was not three feet deep. 
Tools came up, spurted out about a quart 
of it, and, gurgle upon gulp, swallowed 
almost as much more. And this, too, 
could be said to the credit of that man 
of “ideas”: not for an instant had he let 
go the line. A succession of wallowing, 
galvanic jerks, as he tried to find his feet, 
showed that. 

“And this is where we make the finish!” 
shouted Jack, the light of decisive battle in 
his eyes. “Buddy, stand by to let him 
have it when Toolsy and I get him in!” 

Next moment he had gone overboard as 
well. He had braced Tools with one hand, 
and caught at the line with the other. 

No fish has its full fighting strength unless 
it can strike from time to time for deep 
water. And Jack and Tools, working to- 
gether, began to move gradually towards 
a place where the sand showed honey-tinted 
[ 46 ] 


FIRST DAYS 


within a few inches of the surface. There 
was a little bass-weed here and there — 
but nothing that that ’lunge could take hold 
of. He could not even give full vent to his 
rage by jumping now. The best he could 
do was to flop about from time to time on 
the surface like a gravelled salmon. The 
shoaler it got, the less he was able to hold 
back. And now, unable to restrain himself 
any longer, Bud jumped over, too, with an 
oar in his hand. 

Splashing through the water, he ran down 
the twitching line till he was squarely behind 
the fish. ^ 

“Will I hit him? Will I hit him?” 

“Not if you can get him without!” 

And Bud did get him without. He put 
both hands through his gills, and — soused 
to the hair by the slapping, threshing tail — 
fairly shoved their trophy ahead of him till 
he was high and dry. Then and then only 
could he be given that crack on the back of 
his head with the edge of the oar blade which 
[ 47 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


kills a big fish without spoiling him for 
mounting. 

They got him into the boat, and hoisted 
the sail again, and started once more for 
the head of the lake. Booky looked at 
his watch. He had looked at it before 
when they were leaving Fish Island, and 
they knew, or could calculate, just about 
how long it had been between then and the 
moment when they got the strike. A little 
sum in subtraction told them that that 
battle royal had lasted for more than an 
hour and ten minutes! 

But was it worth it! Oh, was it worth 
it ! The first day out and already they had 
a trophy that deserved the mantel-place 
in the Club ! 

“I’ll skin him to-night,” said Jack. 
“What we can’t eat for supper we can likely 
dry. And the skin and head, with a little 
drying and smoking, will keep like rawhide! 
Tools, you for your first mounting job, when 
we get back!” 


[ 48 ] 


FIRST DAYS 


The shore line was gradually becoming 
rougher and wilder. Great masses of gran- 
ite rose among the young cedars. And 
ragged, bleaching stump ends overhung the 
water. At about half-past four they 
rounded the last point, and there, standing 
up ahead, bone- white and unmistakable, 
were the three girdled trees which marked 
the beginning of Half Mile Carry. 

Two minutes more and the nose of the 
Twenty -footer was grounding at the portage. 

It was their first opportunity to test the 
value of old Job’s instructions in the art 
of “pack toting.” And while the task of 
getting those blanket packs to bale up 
properly offered certain initial difficulties, 
in five minutes the whole four of them were 
hitting the trail, feeling as if they were 
good for ten miles of it at that gait! 

They followed the old logging road, con- 
structed when the Wantebec was a pine 
country, and now all overgrown with mosses. 
Even the ancient corduroy over the stretches 
[ 49 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


of “ma’sh” could hardly be distinguished 
now, for the masses of maidenhair and 
lilies of the valley and blue-eyed grass 
which covered it. 

They came out in the little clearing above 
the Upper Rapids, startling a kingfisher 
into clucking fits. But they stopped only 
long enough to roll out the contents of those 
blanket packs and emit a long hilarious 
whoop; then they dived back down the 
green shadows of the portage again. 

A second trip, and all the light gear was 
safely over. It was the turn of the Twenty- 
footer herself. And to freight her proved 
to be an even easier job. It was only a 
matter of turning her gunwale down over 
a pair of old ash loading stakes, and taking 
her two and two. They did that third 
half-mile at a dog-trot, and shouting their 
Club war-cry! 

“We’ve got to keep in mind, though,” 
said Bud, “that we didn’t do a whole lot 
of rowing to-day.” 


[ 50 ] 


FIRST DAYS 


“Oh, I don’t know,” said Tools, “I think 
we had some exercise that was a mighty 
sight huskier!” 

And, as it was, once the Twenty-footer 
was resting easily in her proper element 
again, they were quite ready to flop down 
among the withered May apples beside the 
remainder of their goods and chattels again. 
The sun was dropping low. Loon Chute 
was still a long distance to the northward. 
They decided they’d make it a case of camp, 
after all, and there would be a good deal 
to do before they could set up for the night, 
at that. 

Jack got together the sheet-iron sections 
and the steel skewers of the camp stove. 
“If you and Tools,” he said to Booky, “will 
get things ready for supper, Bud and I 
will take the axe and see about some tent- 
poles.” 

There was driftwood enough for their 
fire on the patch of grass they had to clear 
for the blankets. And there was enough 
[ 51 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


more along shore to have lasted them a year. 
But, as good foresters, they didn’t spread 
their fire around. 

Jack fixed up the ’lunge. It was out of 
the question, even with the appetites they 
had by now, to eat it all. And the smoking 
process, as far as the meat was concerned, 
was not any epoch-marking success. But 
it was what they needed for their trophy. 
They spread the skin and head about a little 
log, and left them where they could con- 
tinue drying by the fire all night. 

Supper over — and it was a huge one 
— they opened the tent flap full width, 
and slipped out of their shoes and outer 
clothing, and pulled those sleeping-bags into 
the clear, so that they could watch the soft 
red glow of the dying back logs. Bud and 
Tools produced their mouth-organs, and 
they played Tenting To-night , and My Old 
Kentucky Home, and Suwanee River , and a 
dozen other sweetly solemn things. The 
friendly guardianship of their bivouac kept 
[ 52 ] 


FIRST DAYS 


the thousand night sounds of woods and 
water from being too weird and lonesome. 
And through the woods the rapids below 
them murmured ever more and more sleep- 
ily. In time even the wondering stars, 
looking serenely down upon them, could 
no longer keep them out of dreamland. 
And so ended their first day on the river. 


[ 53 ] 


CHAPTER FOUR 

LUNGE LAKE AND THE TIME OF WAITING 

S PACE lacks to tell the whole story of 
that week’s journey up the Wantebec. 
Mile after mile of free river made in 
record time! Portages taken on the trot! 
Bass that tested their rods even as that 
’lunge had tested their trolling tackle! 
Night after night spent in the flush and 
glow of their camp-fire light! And when 
Bud and Tools didn’t provide an evening’s 
entertainment with their mouth-organs, 
Booky, whose mind was beginning to go to 
the mounds again, got out one of those 
Archseological Reports and read aloud about 
how the great fortress and ceremonial 
mounds of Ohio and Wisconsin had come 
to be discovered — in short, the days and 
nights both seemed made up of pure de- 
light. And at length the Twenty-footer 
[ 54 ] 


L UNGE LAKE 


passed the muddy West Branch, and found 
herself in the waters of the Upper Wantebec. 

They were pulling past the Old Shanties, 
their seventy-mile mark, when they made 
out some one above them coming down 
the river in a canoe. It was Uncle Billy 
McLeash, as they guessed at once. We 
have said that Uncle Billy carried a fort- 
nightly mail up and down between Wante- 
bec and the North Woods. 

And, as soon as Uncle Billy caught sight 
of the boys, he stopped with a jerk and 
swung anxiously in to give them a piece 
of news which his mail-bag did not contain. 

“They’re clean gone on the rampage!” 
he said, rubbing the few upstanding gray 
hairs on the top of his cranium. “An’ the 
whole three camps in the big chain ! Lordy, 
you boys got no call to be going anywhere 
near them!” 

“Near who?” they asked. 

“Them spruce choppers! An’ as I’ve 
heerd tell, you’d ought to ’a’ got to know 
[ 55 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


them from your expairience up there last 
year!” 

“Why,” said Jack, “they didn’t hurt us 
such a much.” But Uncle Billy’s worri- 
ment was a little catching. “What’s got 
them now?” 

“Them free-traders has got them!” 
“Free-traders,” it may be explained, are 
gentry who make it their business to intro- 
duce illicit liquor into the spruce and lum- 
ber bush. “I don’t know how they done 
it, but you’d say that they’d managed, 
somehow, to run in a whole freighter load 
o’ forty-rod — an’ stuff strong enough, 
beside’, to kill at smellin’ distance. An’ 
the gangs has been crazy ever sence ! That 
Lunge Lake bunch druv’ both their bosses 
out o’ camp two days ago. An’ they’ve 
been makin’ Satan’s own time of it in twenty 
other ways!” 

“What — what’s going to be done about 
it?” asked Booky. 

“No good to ask me!” said the old man, 
[ 56 ] 


LUNGE LAKE 


staring, as he remembered some new phase 
of the disaster. “I’ve promised boss Halle- 
well to say nothin’ about it down to Wante- 
bec. For the boss has hoofed it overland 
to Macadac Mills to try to get some new 
men before it’ll get knowed about. I’ve 
promised not to tell down to Wantebec,” 
he recollected; “but that ain’t any good 
reason why I shouldn’t give you boys, 
cornin’ up river, your warnin’ to keep 
away from Loggers’ Inlet!” 

“Thanks, Uncle Billy. It’s mighty good 
of you to warn us. And you can be dead 
sure we’ll give the Inlet all the room it 
needs. ” 

“Irish Mike’s at the head of it,” he con- 
tinued; “as good-natur’d a hard lot as ever 
I know, too. But, my word, when they 
get a-goin’ ! I only hope Ninny don’t take 
no notion to go down there just now! My 
conscience, for a week o’ mischief! You 
boys don’t go nowheres near them!” 

They assured him again that they 
[ 57 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


wouldn’t. And still repeating his warnings, 
Uncle Billy pushed out and down river once 
more. They assured themselves, too, sev- 
eral times over, that that outbreak in the 
spruce shanties needn’t make any difference 
as far as they were concerned. Had there 
been no such outbreak, of course, they 
would have run into the shanties, as they 
passed, to ask for news of Ninny. But it 
wasn’t likely he’d be anywhere in the 
neighborhood of the shanties at the present 
time. He had found their camp once before 
without their seeking him. There was the 
same reason to believe he would again. 
And that “rampage” wasn’t going to make 
any difference to them whatever. 

By that time portaging had become only 
a kind of game. In the nightly operation 
of laying out camp, the first two men to 
reach the site agreed upon would pace off 
and drop the markers for the tent-pegs 
before the tent itself arrived. And when 
it did arrive, so well had they learned their 
[ 58 ] 


L UNGE LAKE 


team work, they could spread the canvas, 
chop and notch the poles, and have the 
whole lifted and covering their sleeping- 
bags with almost the swift, machine-like 
precision of firemen handling a life net. 
One night, when it rained a little, that 
came in very handily too. 

And every day seemed to give them better 
fishing. The bass were of such a size that 
when they had kept three or four of them — 
and the others they dropped back at once 
— they had enough to fill their pan twice 
over. In one deep cove above Ragged 
Rapids, where they hove to in the shade of 
an overhanging pine to eat their lunch, 
when they dropped their crumbs and meat 
scraps over the side, there was a flicker and 
a rush of foot-long green shadows beneath 
them which made them almost believe that 
they could take to fishing with their hands ! 

They had told themselves that the 4 ‘ram- 
paging” of those spruce cutters wasn’t 
going to make any difference to them what- 
[ 59 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


ever. But they saw fit to take it decidedly 
into consideration when at last their 
next day’s pull must take them into Lunge 
Lake. 

Along its west side, from a point four 
miles below the Narrows, to where it emptied 
into the river at the lake’s extreme northern 
end, stretched the territory of the Chippewa 
Reservation. On the east side, and almost 
at the point where the lake became the river, 
lay that Loggers’ Inlet spruce camp. And 
the Four made up their minds that it would 
behoove them to pass the Narrows at an 
hour when there would be the least possible 
likelihood of their attracting the attention 
of either the “ Reservationers ” on the one 
side, or the spruce men on the other. Nor 
ought this to call for any great degree of 
planning. It would simply be a matter of 
lying along shore five or six miles below the 
lake end, and then taking the Twenty-footer 
through on the “D. Q.” some time before 
dawn. There was moon enough; and they 
[ 60 ] 


L UNGE LAKE 


felt that they could do it without any moon 
at all. 

Once in the lake itself, they could be of 
easy minds. To say nothing of its hundred 
intermingled islands, Lunge Lake possessed 
as many little crooked points and twistings 
and involutions as the roots of an old pine 
stump. Without eluding the acuteness of 
Ninny’s animal-like instincts, by camping 
in the right place, they ought to be able to 
keep out of the sight of all “rampaging” 
spruce men for weeks. Furthermore, they 
would choose a point as far as possible from 
the Reservation. 

By dawn, two days later, they were out 
of the river and in the lake at last. On 
the left hand they had skirted the half- 
stranded length of the “boom” — a 
600 -foot chain of long top-flattened logs, 
later to be used in imprisoning the un- 
tethered rafts. On their right, just with- 
in the bushy point of the inlet, were the 
shanties; at that gray, half-daylight hour 
[ 61 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


they lay as still and lifeless as if they had 
been deserted for a hundred years. And 
an hour after sunrise the boys established 
themselves at the head of a deep, fiord-like 
bay about a mile to the north. 

Though the shore was open enough in 
other directions, between them and the 
shanties there was a dense growth of cedars. 
And unless the spruce gang took to making 
rowing excursions in their chaloupes — 
which was unlikely enough — the Four 
were almost as secure as if they had followed 
the natural yearnings of their hearts and 
buried their ten feet of white canvas and 
the yellow length of the Twenty -footer in 
the depths of the major’s archipelago. It 
was for Ninny’s sake that they remained 
on the mainland, and at least not too far 
away from the shanties. They were going 
to give him all the chance they could. But, 
from their experience of the year before, 
they had little doubt that he would find 
them anywhere. 


[ 62 ] 


LUNGE LAKE 


And during the first day they did little 
more than get things set up, and sit about 
their camp and wait. 

They saw nothing of him. But to balance 
that they saw nothing of the “rampagers.” 
Again and again, however, through the day, 
and till all hours of the night, there came 
up to them the sound of uproarious shouts 
and yells and singing. They could even 
recognize The Old Black Bull , and the 
French-Canadian “ En Roulant ma Boule” 
Yet that yelling and singing came no 
closer to them. And by the afternoon of 
the second day they felt that they could 
begin to let themselves turn to that second 
object of their expedition. They com- 
menced to do a little mound-hunting. They 
could not go far. But they submitted all 
the surrounding shore to the most ex- 
haustive of “ archaeological surveys.” With- 
in a few hours, too, they were finding 
mounds by the dozen. But they all alike, 
when probed into, proved to possess a core 
[ 63 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


either of decayed pine stump or of solid 
rock. 

It was not long until Jack had had enough 
of it for that day. Following his instincts 
as guardian and provider for the party, he 
made an examination of their oatmeal tin, 
and their two sides of bacon, one of which 
had been half used already — and went 
forth with a box of cartridges and the rifle. 
Of course there were fish in plenty. But 
fish are food of which you cannot long con- 
tinue to make three meals a day. 

“And there’s no danger of them hearing 
her,” he said, “once I get another mile or 
so to the north. Her sights are a little off 
again. But, jinks, a fellow that gets into 
the way of depending on sights! I tell 
you, I feel more and more that she’s going 
to be an everlasting lot of use to us 
up here. We may be depending on her 
altogether before we get back. And a 
bigger gun would simply have been in 
the way.” 


[ 64 ] 


L UNGE LAKE 


They had heard something like that 
before. 

Jack did get a gray squirrel, though. 
And an uncommonly good stew that gray 
squirrel made. But in the afternoon, and 
the morning, and the afternoon again that 
followed, he got nothing else of any sort. 
Plainly the peerless weapon was not living 
up to its reputation. None the less, when, 
next day, Jack hung it up and joined them 
in that search for mounds, there was general 
wonderment. 

But for that matter, the mound-hunting 
had been even less successful. And as for 
Ninny, while, the year before, he had found 
them almost in a morning, four days had 
now passed, and they had still seen nothing 
of him. 

But what they were treated to, late that 
afternoon, was a visit from a big canoe- 
party of young Chippewas from the Reser- 
vation. 

The Reservation, precisely like every 
[ 65 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


town of white people, had its good elements 
and its bad. The old people were quiet, 
and law-abiding enough. And they at- 
tempted, too, to give the law to the second 
generation. But among the young men 
there were a considerable number who had 
no intention of taking law from any one. 
They boasted that they had never worked. 
They followed the fall fairs, and haunted 
the spring race-meets. In summer they 
moved out of the Reservation and tented 
by themselves up toward the north of the 
lake. And upon any fishing party rash 
enough to mount the river to the islands, 
they descended with an instinct half rap- 
torial, half vulture-like. By way of giving 
themselves countenance, they filled the 
bows of their birch-barks with samples of 
sweet-grass knickknacks, snow-shoes, bark 
baskets, bows and arrows, and toy canoes. 

Not that those grimy -handed, shifty-eyed 
young gentlemen ever wasted their energies 
on producing such things themselves. As 
[ 66 ] 


LUNGE LAKE 


they gallantly explained it now to the four 
“ Argue-nots,” “You say want ’em, old 
man Chippeway and old mother squaw 
make ’em heap quick for Satu’day.” 

When they received no orders, they de- 
manded tobacco. 

Jack told them flatly that they didn’t use it. 

“Tha’s a lie!” they answered pleasantly. 
And then, in the pure brazenness of their 
numbers, they began to investigate for 
themselves. They pushed by Bud and 
entered the tent. They lifted the sleeping- 
bags, dug into the camera box, and opened 
the magnesium “flashes.” One of them 
managed to break Tools’ bass reel. And 
far from making any apologies, he passed 
that ruined reel up and down among his 
fellows, and sniggered over it as if it was 
one of the funniest things in his experience. 

In the end, too, the boys were fairly com- 
pelled to buy them off. They promised 
that they might look at some bows — the 
big, fifty-cent, man-sized ones — if the 
f [67] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


party should be coming back at some time 
in the future. 

When the Four did finally see the last of 
them, they were ready to burst. And a few 
minutes later it was discovered that a box 
of gimp hooks and two trolling lines were 
missing. 

“ Let’s go out on the water and try to 
get cool,” said Jack; “ anyway, after that, 
they’re not likely to come back again at all.” 

They had before then begun to make 
little fishing excursions out into the lake, 
though they had never gone far enough to 
be observed from the inlet. 

“But I don’t see,” said Tools, next 
morning, “why we shouldn’t cross over as 
far as the islands. If we kept well to the 
north, there wouldn’t be one chance in 
fifty of their spotting us.” 

“Like as not Ninny’s somewhere in there 
himself.” 

“And you see, that was where I found 
that first mound,” said Booky. 

[ 68 ] 


LUNGE LAKE 


The risk seemed a justifiable one. And 
that day they began to re-explore the 
major’s archipelago. 

Covering perhaps two miles square in 
the center of the lake, that Chautauqua-to- 
be formed one unbroken, interlocking laby- 
rinth — and as the “labyrinth” they were 
soon to speak of it. Frequently what 
had appeared to be three islands turned 
out to be half a dozen. It was all one 
Chinese puzzle of crooks, and turn-backs, 
and involutions. Almost never did the 
Twenty-footer emerge from the same door 
at which she had gone in. Somewhere in 
the middle of the archipelago, and possibly 
left by the lumbermen as a landmark, 
towered a huge old pine. But it was a 
day and a half before the “ Argue-nots” 
set foot upon the island on which that 
grand-daddy of pines was growing. 

Even then they found it only by chance. 
For the twentieth time Jack and Booky 
had lost themselves in a series of cedar- 
[ 69 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


shaded “blind channels” which they had 
already come to call the “labyrinth,” when 
suddenly the mighty, dark-green head of 
that pillaring conifer seemed to rise almost 
above their heads. In front of them were 
two steep little headlands of bush-crowned 
granite, with only an eight-foot lane of 
water between them. They punted through, 
turned a rocky shoulder, and saw that it 
was another case of two islands really being 
one. They were in a natural harbor, with 
a sloping beach. Under the great pine 
there was an ideal camping site. But above 
it the rock, overgrown with hazel and rasp- 
berry bushes and little evergreens, rose up 
in log-strewn ledges and crevasses , “balds,” 
and peaks, some of which they could hardly 
climb. 

“It’s a regular Port Arthur!” said Jack. 
And when, on leaving, they worked the 
Twenty-footer around the outside circuit, 
save that the real Port Arthur is on an 
isthmus, the name seemed to be doubly a 
[ 70 ] 


LUNGE LAKE 


good one. Those granite shores rose so 
sheerly — sometimes to twenty -five feet, 
and scarcely anywhere to less than eight 
or ten — and they had been polished so 
smooth by centuries of spring floods, that 
only at one place at the back did it seem 
possible to scale them. 

And there were other islands in the “laby- 
rinth” hardly less interesting. Needless to 
say, several times they revisited the little 
“tumulus” on the island where Booky had 
made his find the year before. But now the 
ash-streaked soil of that “tumulus” yielded 
them only another small fragment of pottery 
and a blue flint arrow-head. 

And, once more, all this had not brought 
them to Ninny, nor Ninny to them. When 
were they to come in touch with him? 

After supper, one fine clear evening, they 
put their bass rods into the Twenty -footer 
and pulled down to the “big weed bed.” 
The “big weed bed” was a good deal nearer 
[71] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


Loggers’ Inlet than their camp itself. It 
was about as near, in fact, as they had ever 
ventured to go. Yet it was quite as com- 
pletely hidden from the shanties. It always 
gave them a good hour’s sport. It was the 
nearest of the good fishing places, and they 
had several times gone out there to catch 
their next morning’s breakfast. 

They were still fishing when the sun set. 
They had landed three big “small-mouths” 
— the gamiest of bass — and two pickerel. 
A heron staring suspiciously at them 
squawked a hostile “ Get-off-the earth!” 
And then, from the inlet, a sudden, roaring 
shout of delight blew up to them. Another 
followed it, and another. 

“They’re in good humor, anyway,” said 
Bud. “If we were going to ask them about 
Ninny, now’d be the right time, I guess.” 

But that was something to think about; 
and the others merely listened and made 
no answer. 

Yet that first outburst was every moment 
[ 72 ] 


LUNGE LAKE 


growing louder and louder; it was rising to 
whoops and halloos. 

“ They’re certainly feeling good over 
something. Maybe now would be a good 
time to get information.” 

“They might be able to tell us ex- 
actly where we could put our hands on 
him.” 

But the next minute was to tell them 
that. High over all that shouting hilarity 
there rose a loud, pitiful bellowing. It 
might have come from some big, harmless 
animal under torment. But it did not 
come from an animal. Not one of the Four 
but knew on the moment that it came from 
Ninny himself! And now it made itself 
heard again. 

They jerked in their rods, clutched the 
oars, and then — and then for a moment 
they halted again. What were they going 
to try to do? There were only the four of 
them. And in that spruce gang there were 
more than thirty men. 

[ 73 ] • 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


Even as they sat there, hesitating, that 
first terrified bellowing went up into a 
tortured, barking shriek. The shouts and 
roars of delight grew only the wilder. But 
they were broken now by sounds of strug- 
gling, of men falling and others rushing to 
their assistance. And then, upon a sudden, 
amid a general yell of triumph, that tor- 
tured barking was shut off for second after 
second by some throttling, choking gag. 

“That’s enough!” said Jack. “That’s 
enough! We can’t sit here and listen to 
that!” 

And their oars were in the water again 
almost with a single movement. 

They were all of them very pale. For 
who could say what they were pulling into? 
But whenever that wretched bellowing 
dropped down to that horrible, strangled 
gurgle, it made them feel weak and sick. 
They had never taken the Twenty-footer 
at such a pace before; but it seemed as if 
they were towing a raft of logs. 

[ 74 ] 


L UNGE LAKE 


Yet they brought her swirling around the 
cedar-covered point of the Inlet at last. 
And then the whole scene revealed itself 
within a stone’s throw of them. 


[ 75 ] 


CHAPTER FIVE 


A RESCUE 

"7T was Ninny! 

His hair and beard had been close 
^ cropped, which kept them from being 
sure at first. In fact, one of the gang was 
still holding a pair of huge camp shears 
above his head. But those old lynx skins 
and cast off lumber- jack clothes could cover 
no one else. And now he was writhing at 
full length on the bank, with half a dozen 
big-booted choppers on top of him; while 
“ Jombateest” — the boys knew that fat 
French Canadian in a minute from old 
acquaintance — was thrusting the neck of 
a bottle between his teeth. 

“This is the old original water cure for 
batty guys!” shouted another spruce man 
maudlinly. “On’y we give it with the stuff 
that’s worth the drinkin’!” 

[76] 


A RESCUE 


And at that moment some of the gang 
caught sight of the Twenty-footer. 

“Well in the name o’ Pat!” The first 
to find his voice was the dark-faced “ Cash- 
down” Corkery; and “Cash-down” also 
there was no mistaking. “An’ where did 
youse come from?” 

“We come from up above! And, ah, 
what are you doing to Ninny there?” All 
the boys seemed to shout it together. “Ah, 
let him alone, can’t you! Let him alone!” 

‘ ‘ La-ga-di-ga-da-ga-dieu l ” 

“Say — fer cheek! Bump ta-ra-rum!” 

“iVora d’une pipe! Ai! ‘ En roulant ma 
boule, en roulant ! — ’ ” Some of the French- 
men began discordantly to sing again. 

“An’ we’ve seen them before, too, some- 
wheres!” said “Cash-down” above the 
bedlam. “Hi! Watch him lads! He’ll be 
away from youse!” 

They flung themselves back upon Nin- 
ny, got his head down once more, and once 
more that greasy “Canajun” cook — for, as 
[ 77 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


always, he was torturer-in-chief — thrust a 
gagging bottle into the open mouth. 

“Let up, now! Let up!” cried the boys, 
in an agony. “You’ll hear about this down 
in Wantebec!” 

“Ah, we’re seein’ to it that he don’t 
get enough to hurt him!” bawled “Cash- 
down” again. “Give him some more, 
Bateeste ! ” 

“Yah, I tal yo’,” hiccuped a lanky 
Swede known as Long Yon, “I tal yo’ it 
ban goot for his healt!” 

“Shu-rwre it is!” 

“ Parfaitement! 6 En roulant ma boule , 
— ’” And for a time the yelling chorus 
again drowned everything. 

“Will youse shut yer faces fer a minute! 
These here kids has come up here to resky 
Ninny!” 

And, as “Cash-down” spoke, again that 
stifled voice became a strangle. 

“Well, we’ll just do what we can, any- 
way!” shouted Jack. And no longer caring 
[ 78 ] 


A RESCUE 


what happened to them, the boys started 
their boat for shore. 

At that moment Irish Mike, big and 
beaming, mop-haired, and irresponsible as 
ever, came out of the woods to the right 
of the shanties. “Hay, what ye at with 
Ninny now? Wasn’t robbin’ the poor lad 
of his hair an’ whisk — Gobs! an’ where 
did the bhoys an’ skiff drop from?” 

44 We’ve come from down river — to get 
Ninny, and — ” 

“Ah, look out, there! Look out! — Cripes! 
— The wolverine!” 

Ninny had got half-way to his feet. At 
the first sound of these familiar voices — 
the voices of friends ! — for one dumb in- 
credulous moment he had lain staring. 
Then, with a tremendous, bursting heave, 
he had managed to throw himself over and 
get upon his hands. 

“ Ah, for the — Grip his legs again! — 
Youse would, would you! Take him lower! 
Throw him, Jack! All of youse pile on!” 

[ 79 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


“Cash-down” himself now went heavily to 
the gravel. “Kill the beggar! Lay him 
out with a rock!” 

But it was too late. The whole clump 
rolled down the bank like a pack of hunting 
dogs trying to fasten upon a bear — but 
their hold was broken. Ninny rose with 
one of them still clinging upon his shoulders. 
But an instant later he had bucked him 
over his head, and breaking his way 
headlong through all opposition, he took 
to the water. 

“It’s all right, Ninny! It’s all right!” 
yelled the boys, almost beside themselves, 
and amid a volley of stones from the shore 
they rushed the Twenty -footer in to meet 
him. 

He was now drawing his breath in long, 
panting gasps; and when by the sheer 
muscle-power given by necessity they had 
dragged him over the stern, he could do 
little more than lie where he had fallen. 

Now that the moment had come, it had 

[ 80 ] 


A RESCUE 


come with most breath-taking suddenness. 
They had no time to think. They only 
saw that he was as he had been the year 
before, big and ragged, immense of sinew, 
yet childlike in his weak-wittedness. But 
he was in their keeping now, and if need 
should be, they were going to protect him 
with their lives! 

“Ninny’s a good feller!” he breathed, 
choking. “Ninny’s a good feller!” 

“Sure!” they answered, quiveringly. 

“You’re all right, Ninny! And we’re 
going to take care of you, what’s more!” 

But for the first minutes they had to 
think of the immediate present. As they 
swept around and down the inlet, they 
could see, farther up the shore, those two 
spruce camp chaloupes — big cumbrous 
craft, but fast enough when they had a full 
crew to pull their oars. And some of the 
gang had stopped throwing stones and were 
running for them now. They were going 
to give chase by water, so much was plain. 

[ 81 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


In the minds of those four breathless 
“ Argue-nots” there was a single thought. 
They could not — even had they had all 
their belongings packed and ready for an im- 
mediate run south and home — they could 
not risk trying to pass the shanties again 
at once, or as long as the gang were watch- 
ing for them; but by making use of every 
second of the now fast-falling dusk they 
could get up to camp, pitch their gear 
into the boat in any way at all, whip 
back into the lake, and hide among the 
islands till the cover of the night should 
let them slip past into the river in 
safety. If necessary, indeed, they could 
wait till that same before-dawn hour at 
which they had passed the shanties coming 
up. 

All their plans for mound-hunting had 
come to an end before they had had a chance 
to use a spade. But it was not a moment 
when they could feel regrets. It was enough, 
as they made their camp and hastily loaded 
[82] 


A RESCUE 


the Twenty -footer, to see that Ninny stayed 
with them as if he never intended to leave 
them more. 

Everything in the boat, and with room 
only for Jack and Tools at the oars, they 
pulled out of their bay again. It was barely 
in time to escape the first of those madly 
pursuing spruce camp craft. 

It was fortunate for the Four that they 
knew the islands as well as they did by 
now. With the chaloupes following them 
in one yapping hue-and-cry, they pushed 
into the black gulf of the nearest channel. 
Then, punting back and forth through all 
its crooks and deviations, they half groped 
their way toward that island that was 
like Port Arthur. 

Every few moments they could catch a 
roar of rage louder and more ferocious than 
any before it, as Irish Mike and his fellows 
tried in vain first to feel their way after 
them through the Egyptian darkness of 
the “labyrinth,” and then, failing that, 
[83 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


to pull themselves out again. At the end 
of it, too, the gang did seem somehow to 
have got back into open water, and for 
the time, the astounded echoes heard no 
more of them. 

The Twenty-footer found those two little 
headlands which had led them into “Port 
Arthur ” the first time. She passed through 
into the harbor, struck two or three half 
sunken logs among the rushes, and made 
the beach. 

The rocks piled themselves high above 
them; but in the little cove under the 
great pine the ground was low enough for 
safe concealment. For a time they said 
and did nothing whatever. Then — “I 
think,” whispered Jack, “that we could 
risk building a fire and getting something 
to eat. I know we’re not feeling a whole 
lot like it. But we’ll have to eat some- 
time to-night!” 

“And Ninny,” said Tools; “likely 
enough he’s half starving. He wouldn’t 
[ 84 ] 


A RESCUE 


have gone down to the shanties again if 
he hadn’t been.” 

They went a little way up from the beach 
to where the cedars were thickest, cut out 
two or three little ones, and started a fire 
in the middle of the remaining clump. 

In the bottom of the boat they still had 
those bass and pickerel which they had 
caught in the big weed bed, and a little dig- 
ging among their jumbled supplies turned 
up the coffee and the last of the bread. 
They began, too, to discover how hungry 
they really were, once they commenced to 
get the smell of the food. And Ninny! 
If in the beginning he had continued to sit 
in a huddle on the other side of the fire, 
drawn and faint from what he had gone 
through, his first big mug of hot coffee 
seemed to bring back to him strength and 
motion and an absolutely ravening appetite 
together! It went to their hearts to see 
him watching the frying pan with glittering 
eyes that pretended not to, while his mouth 
[ 85 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


framed a gratitude that was beyond any 
power of man to express. 

No less did it go to the heart to see him, 
with an impulse that no one could have 
looked for, making shy, grotesque attempts 
to get back to the use of a knife and fork. 
They filled his plate again and again; then 
finished by bringing him out one of those 
fat little honeycombs, the extra sleeping- 
bag, and the clothes. 

At the sight of them — and when he 
understood that all that, too, was meant 
for him — with a queer wild sound, he 
sank down and began weakly and shakenly 
to cry. 

They could hardly bring themselves to 
look at him. With his great, trembling, 
kindly face, brown and hairy to the eyes, at 
certain moments he made them think of 
some big dog, and at the next minute of a 
child of three again; and again, there were 
times when he almost looked the man he 
should have been — but a man who has 
[ 86 ] 


A RESCUE 


lost something. Nor did they feel so much 
that his wits were gone as that his sufferings 
had bereft him of all rightful human cour- 
age and self-confidence. Of his spirit there 
remained only the power to fear and the 
wish to please. 

It was plain, too, that his one desire was 
to please them now. He sat up, and with 
the tears still upon his face, he began 
absurdly to wink and smile. He did not 
eat the honey. Instead he caught up 
the clothes and started down through 
the darkness to the harbor beach. 

And then another surprise awaited the 
Four. In a few moments they heard him 
splashing about out in the water! Yet 
they might have noticed, for that matter, 
that though his gnarly arms were of the 
ruggedness of roots, you could not say that 
they were dirty. Through all his stay in 
the bush there had maintained itself in 
him somehow that queer, deep-down, white 
man instinct of cleanliness ! When at length 
[87] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


he came back in his new raiment, with 
choppy beard and hair still dripping, they 
made up their minds that next time they 
would remember to provide him with soap 
and towel. Meanwhile he was jumping 
about as if that spruce gang no longer 
existed on the lake. He was wholly the 
child of three once more. 

“And say,” said Tools, “if only he’d 
had his bow along! If we didn’t find any 
mounds, on the way down he might have 
showed us some of that dead-eye shooting 
that you hear about!” 


[ 88 ] 


CHAPTER SIX 


THE GREAT BEAR! 


f— 1| ^HE moon was up. They could not 
think of running by the shanties 
till it was down again, and it 
would not be down for hours. They had 
practically the whole night to put in, and 
to begin with they set to work to sort up 
their stuff, and get it packed for the first 
stage of the journey home. For one thing 
they must now arrange their packs so that 
all four of them could row, and yet leave 
room for Ninny in the stern. 

That well done, they still had several 
hours ahead of them. They built up the 
fire, and made Ninny roll in beside it in 
his sleeping-bag. Jack and Bud and Tools 
made themselves snug in turn upon the 
other side. None of them could really 
think of sleeping. But, in the case of 
[39 J 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


Booky, as the moon rose higher and 
higher, he seemed to be of a “ jumpiness” 
that could not even go through the mo- 
tions of settling down. “Supposing,” he 
whispered, some time between twelve and 
one, “supposing I climb that little pine 
over there, and keep kind of on the look- 
out? You see, you can’t be sure. They 
might be coming back again.” 

“All right, old man,” they told him; 
“go ahead!” 

The little pine did not give him a view 
of much more than “Port Arthur” itself. 
But it was something at least to be able to 
make sure that no one was stealing up on 
them in that dead, unnerving silence. In 
Booky ’s own words, “It sort of kept the 
creeps from working the whole way down 
your back!” 

And, after the first minutes, when he had 
got his night eyes, he began to look around 
over the island itself. 

The right half was one piled-up chaos of 
[ 90 ] 


THE GREAT BEAR! 


rocks and rock-growing shrubs and trees, 
but the left, as he could see it now, dropped 
down into a sort of wide, bushy, irregular 
bowl. At the farther end of it the soil 
must have gathered deeply, just as it had 
about the foot of that “grand-daddy of 
pines/’ now towering above him; for a 
whole jungle of old fallen trees had piled 
up there together. The quicksilvery moon- 
light brought them out uncannily. 

Once more Booky’s eyes traveled back 
along the bottom of that “bowl.” And 
then he began to see something else ! 

In those first seconds he did not breathe. 
He felt a sort of powerlessness which all 
but let him fall from the tree. 

“Jack!” he cried, in a dry, thin voice, 
“Jack! Come up here!” 

“What’s the matter?” They all an- 
swered him together, starting up in one 
sudden jerk of speech. “Go on! You’re 
fooling yourself! There’s not a sound of 
anybody!” 


[ 91 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


But Jack, for his part, was pulling him- 
self up the tree, hand over hand. 

It was no on-creeping spruce cutters that 
Booky had seen. It was nothing living of 
any kind. Outlined in that clear black 
and white of the moon (in the sunlight it 
might have been lost in the bushes that 
largely fledged it over) and filling the whole 
central width of the “bowl,” was the rude, 
mighty, but not-to-be-mistaken mound- 
effigy of an animal; and the broad, solid, 
pointed head, the thick, blunt paws, and 
the absence of a tail, made the resemblance 
clear and striking to the far-stretching 
peltry of a great bear. 

“And look!” said Booky, as he got the 
use of speech again; “just out from its 
nose there — there’s another mound — an 
egg-shaped one! And it’s in them that 
they always find the things!” 

“Well!” said Jack. “Well! This is pil- 
ing it up, all right!” 

They slipped down to give place to Bud 
[ 92 ] 


THE GREA T BEAR! 


and Tools. And they, in their turn, hung 
speechlessly from those upper branches and 
stared at the marvel. 

“We can go down and look it over, any- 
way !” 

“Well, I guess yes! And we’ve got a 
good two hours yet to dig in!” 

“ Under a moon like that, it’s like having 
electric light!” 

They tumbled back to the Twenty- 
footer, hauled out the spades from the 
stern sheets, climbed the ridge of rock, and 
swarmed down into the shaggy depths of 
the “bowl” at the constant peril of their 
necks. They climbed along the vast, bris- 
tling spine of the effigy; and, when once 
they were actually upon it, for a time they 
all but lost belief that it was anything more 
than a natural earth formation; and then, 
having followed the head to the nose, they 
slid down and mounted to the smaller, oval 
mound in front. 

Wherever the soil had come from, that 
[ 93 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


smaller mound alone was a good twenty- 
five feet wide by thirty-five in length. 
Some big, half-burned pine logs had fallen 
across it. They had to take each in turn, 
dig under one side, find a lever, and by 
main strength pry them over. After his 
first infinite bewilderment, Ninny helped 
them with that. And again they saw what 
a gorilla-like strength he had. Then Jack 
and Bud went to work with the spades. 
But, if they were to open the whole 
mound, they had the task of uncovering a 
space equal to the cellar area of a large 
house. And the piercing of that surface 
mat of rootlets and humus was almost as 
bad as digging through blue clay. At the 
commencement they had been full of sore 
lamentations that they had brought only 
those two spades with them. At the end 
of the first hour even Booky was ready to 
rest a little sooner than Bud was ready to 
“spell” him again. Yet they had touched 
only a few square yards in the center. And 
[ 94 ] 



Another hour and they were through the second layer, page 95 




























i 




THE GREA T BEAR! 


in the meantime the moon was descending 
ever lower and lower. 

“We’re not going to get anywhere at 
all!” said Tools hopelessly. “We’re simply 
not going to get anywhere at all!” 

They did get somewhere. Another hour 
and they were through the second layer, 
and by another they were beginning to 
turn up those first all-significant, all-alluring 
“ash-streaks.” But alas, by that time the 
moon was fairly gone! 

“ Shall I — shall I go for the candle- 
lantern?” asked Booky. 

But he knew only too well that if they 
were to get by the inlet in the dark of the 
moon, now was the time for them to start. 

“As far as that goes,” said Tools, hardly 
less ready to fall away from duty, “I dare- 
say we’d be safe in here for the next two 
days.” 

There was an aching silence. 

“Well, what are we going to do about 
her?” asked Bud, looking at Jack. Jack, 
[ 95 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


too, had become a knight of the doleful 
countenance. But he had kept his moral 
back a little stiff er. “I guess you’ve as 
much right to settle that as I have,” 
he said. “But you mind we promised 
them down home that no matter how 
many mounds we found, Some One Else 
was always going to stand first. Maybe 
we would be safe enough in here. It’s 
ten to one we would. The thing is, 
have we any right to take the chance?” 

Yet it was to be Ninny himself who settled 
the question. His strange, woods-sharpened 
instincts told him, in some way, that they 
were talking about him. And probably he 
believed that they were planning to leave 
him there. For suddenly he began to fill 
with all his old terrors again. “Ninny’s a 
good feller!” he whispered. “Ninny’s a 
fine feller!” And he reached out and tried 
miserably to take hold of them. 

Then they hesitated no longer. 

“ Yes ! Yes, Ninny, you’re right, you are ! ” 
[ 96 ] 


THE GREA T BEAR! 


“You’re the best feller on the lake!” 

“And we won’t run any risks of letting 
them get you again for all the mounds on 
earth!” (It was Booky who said that, 
too.) 

Bud, the taciturn, began to gather up 
the spades and trowels. “And anyway, 
it’s something that we know how to fool 
those spruce-gangers.” 

They got themselves slowly and painfully 
out of the “bowl,” picked their way down 
to the Twenty -footer, and once more began 
to load up. 

Ninny, now that he could really feel 
he was to go along, appeared to accept 
everything they did, however seemingly 
erratic, as the one right and logical thing 
to do. He settled himself importantly in 
the stern. They pushed off, poled their 
way through those half-sunken root-logs 
to the harbor mouth, and so, yard by yard, 
on through the “labyrinth” into the lake. 

The moon had gone down. It was a 
[ 97 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


virtual certainty that even the most venge- 
ful of the gang had long since been overcome 
by slumber. But on the chance, slight as 
it was, that a sentinel had been put out, 
they kept well over toward the Reserva- 
tion shore. 

There was no sign of a watcher. They 
passed the point of the inlet and came in 
sight of the shanties. The big low build- 
ings blocked themselves out black and 
motionless in the surrounding gloom. There 
was neither fire without nor light within. 
And the Four reached out and gave each 
other the grip. There were other summers 
to come, and maybe they would be able 
to get back and dig below those ash-streaks 
yet! Meanwhile they had rescued Ninny 
and fooled those spruce-gangers, and in 
three minutes more they would be in 
the full current of their old Wantebec 
again. 

Three minutes more! But, as Jack 
turned and peered ahead to get his bearings, 
[98J 


THE GREAT BEAR! 


his eye caught a shadow stretching athwart 
the narrows — a shadow, and yet there 
was now no moon! 

They drew steadily nearer, and saw, 
moreover, that it was a shadow unlike all 
ordinary shadows on the water; it was ♦ 

absolutely unmoving! 

And then — as, barely in time to avoid 
a head-on smash, they swung the Twenty- 
footer around, in dismay — they made out 
what that shadow was. It was the boom. 

That great, six-hundred-foot chain of logs, 
which they had seen swinging from the 
west bank on the way up, had been carried 
directly across the river mouth. It still 
remained riveted to the sheer, upstanding 
rock of that west bank by a huge iron staple, 
cemented into the granite. No earthly 
possibility of a portage on that side! And 
the other end of the boom had now been 
brought over and made fast to the landing 
directly in front of the shanties! 

“Oh, they’ve done us!” said Tools, and 
[ 99 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


let his oar drop. 4 4 If we tried it on there, 
the noise’d bring out the whole nest of them 
just in one half jiffy!” 

The thing was as effective as if the lengths 
of chain which linked the separate logs of 
the boom together had been fastened about 
the limp and weary ankles of those four 
oarsmen themselves. They were prisoners; 
and only in that minute did they seem to 
realize how weary they were. They had 
not only been checkmated ; they were physi- 
cally fagged out. They had had no sleep; 
they had been digging for hours; and they 
had been rowing for miles. The air on the 
lake was misty and raw and cold. And 
their every muscle felt as if it had been 
pounded with a mason’s maul. Ninny, who 
till then had sat fully trusting in the stern, 
gave a little whimper of misery — fearing 
he knew not what. Even the Twenty- 
footer herself appeared to knock her strakes 
against the logs in fathomless despondency. 

“Yes, they’ve got us!” said Booky. 

[ 100 ] 


THE GREA T BEAR! 


“We certainly can’t stand them off for 
long in daylight,” echoed Tools. 

“Oh, I don’t know!” said Jack, and he 
set his teeth on it. “I sort of think ‘Port 
Arthur’ might be good to stand a siege! 
This looks to me like our chance to finish 
up with the Great Bear!” 


[ 101 ] 


CHAPTER SEVEN 

RESER VA T I ONERS AGAIN 


E’LL know better where we’re 



at,” said Jack again, “when 
we’ve had about a straight 


twelve hours of sleep.” 

And the first thing they did when they 
were back in “Port Arthur” at last was to 
take it. They could have fallen over and 
slept in the boat. And as it was, they had 
no thought of waiting to raise the tent. 
Rolling themselves under the cedars in their 
big gray blanket bags — and now Ninny 
rolled himself in his as a matter of course 
— they were conscious of nothing more 
till they were awakened by the heat of the 
midday sun. 

Even then Jack refused to go into any 
projects of defense until they had further- 


[ 102 ] 


RESERVATIONERS AGAIN 


more set themselves right to the extent of 
a good square meal. 

That duly eaten, they were all little short 
of amazed to note how the complexion of 
their position seemed somehow to have 
changed. 

“For one thing,” said Booky, “they don’t 
know we’re in here. And we know from 
our own experience it’s the last place on 
the lake they’ll ever happen on by accident.” 

“ And for all we know, boss Hallewell 
may be back and in control again, right 
while we’re sitting here.” 

“ And when he does get back, you can 
bet that boom won’t stay there long!” 

Jack did not seem to be counting on that, 
however. He was now leader indeed. He 
had become so without discussion, and 
solely because several years of doing almost 
a man’s work had fitted him for the responsi- 
bility. And he had already been taking a 
rapid look over “Port Arthur” from within. 

The island covered not less than five 
[ 103 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


acres, and it was a big broken ridge of rock 
and jungle. Save for the hollow of the 
bowl (and it was hard enough to keep 
away from the Great Bear even for the 
present), almost from the foot of the 
grand-daddy of pines, the granite, over- 
grown with hazel and raspberry bushes, 
cedars and spruces, rose and fell in a series 
of log-strewn ledges and crevasses and 
rock-heads; the most striking of the latter 
shall be spoken of separately later on. 
Jack now suggested that they get into the 
Twenty-footer and take another look at 
“Port Arthur” from the outside. 

Its encircling wall of granite lifted itself 
so sheerly up from the water — upon an 
average to a height of ten or fifteen feet — 
and it had been polished so smooth by 
countless centuries of spring floods that only 
at one place at the north end did it seem 
possible for it to be scaled. They turned the 
Twenty-footer back to the narrow, granite- 
pillared entrance to their harbor again. 

[ 104 ] 


RESERVATIONERS AGAIN 


“I guess, Tools,” said the new com- 
mander, “we’ll have to make you chief 
engineer of the defense. Here’s your real 
chance to bring on some of those little ideas 
of yours. We can use a few of them right 
now!” 

Tools reddened a little, with the modesty 
of genius. “Well, if you want to know,” 
he said, “only I suppose you’ll think it’s 
pretty crazy — I had a sort of one on the 
way out. I guess, though, it mostly came 
from that Bruce-and-the-Spider story. But, 
I was thinking if we choked up this little 
bottle-neck place with some of those old 
drift logs back there, and made it look as 
if they’d stuck in it just by chance, I don’t 
believe anybody ’d ever suspect that we 
were in here at all! ” 

For a beginning, that was undoubtedly 
an idea! In all modesty, it made Bruce 
and the spider look like amateurs ! And no 
matter what other measures for the defense 
they took, that was going to be the first. 

[ 105 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


Half a dozen logs would do it; and they 
would jam together and anchor themselves. 
Before they had really got to work, Tools 
had another idea. If they arranged most 
of those logs root inward, it would make 
them jam better; while, at the same time, 
to “uncork their bottle/’ if ever they needed 
to, they would only have to bend a rope 
about the roots of the middle one and pull 
away with the oars. 

It was easy work. They did it rapidly. 
And they were just about to run that key- 
log into place, when a sort of multiplied 
“Huh!” of satisfaction brought their heads 
up with a jump. The same four canoe- 
loads of young Indians who had visited 
them at their mainland camp were now 
pushing suavely up the channel! 

How they had found the “Argue-nots” 
in their present enforced retirement the 
latter never knew. But the swarthy young 
gentlemen inherited eyes quite capable of 
following the Twenty-footer through the 
[ 106 ] 


RESERVATIONERS AGAIN 


labyrinth by a dozen broken rushes or a 
day-old wake of bubbles. And now, as if 
on invitation, they threaded their way 
through the all but stoppered bottle-neck, 
and made for the camp. 

With the boys there was nothing for it 
but follow them. As for Ninny, even had 
the Four not known it, it would have been 
plain that again he was in the presence of 
those who for too long had been his tor- 
turers. Again fear seemed to take him 
like an ague. He tried to get out of the 
boat before she had made the beach by 
jumping to a little outlying rock; but the 
stern of the nearest birch-bark switched in, 
and with a snake-like quickness a young 
Reservationer reached out, nipped him by 
the heels, and dropped him face down upon 
the stone. Whereupon all his fellows 
laughed till they could hardly get them- 
selves ashore. 

With a miserable, placating smile Ninny 
picked himself up, his forehead bleeding, 
[107] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


and slipped terrifiedly away. As soon as 
he was out of sight he could be heard fleeing 
as from the plague. 

In spite of many inward resolutions to 
keep the peace, the Four were ready to do 
battle on the spot. But, for Ninny’s best 
interests in the end, the only course open 
to them was to rid themselves of their visi- 
tors at the earliest possible moment and 
get back to their work. 

And the opportunity seemed to offer it- 
self at once. In the first canoe were those 
four bows which the boys had promised 
that they might look at. Now they were 
produced and held out to them. Jack took 
one look at his fellows, and saw that they 
were all of a single mind with him. The 
bows, too, being made by the old men of 
the tribe, were good, big, business-like 
looking weapons. 

“All right,” he said; “it’s a go — we’ll 
take them. But we don’t want any- 
thing else. Dig up two dollars, Booky, 
[ 108 ] 


RESERVATIONERS AGAIN 


so we won’t have to keep them waiting 
around.” 

And Booky, as treasurer, began to get 
out the money. He had all but paid it 
over, when the Reservation leader turned 
to Tools. With an impudence which made 
the boys almost doubt if they had heard 
aright — “You wan’ one, too?” he asked. 

“Do I want one, too?” 

“Sure! Two dolla’ each!” 

“Well, of all the nerve! And as if you 
hadn’t said fifty cents about ten times over, 
besides!” 

“Fifty cent’ for the arrow!” 

“All right!” said the “Argue-not” trea- 
surer, intensely; “all right! It’s a good 
thing, Mr. Man, that you let us know in 
time!” And thereupon Booky put the 
money back into his pocket. 

For the time the disposal of those bows 
came to a decided halt. 

With a countenance quite indescribably 
changed, the young Indian turned to Bud. 

[ 109 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


“You give two dolla’,” he suggested fool- 
ishly. 

“ Yes ! ” And for once the slow, unspeak- 
ing Bud found voice. “Yes! I will in 
about a million years! Come on, fellows, 
we’ve got something a little better to do 
than to stand chewing here any longer. 
Here, you lads could see we were busy when 
you came in. And if you wanted to make 
a sale, you didn’t need to come all the way 
into camp, at that! So you just chase out 
again now, and get a move on to where you 
started for!” 

“ Good for you, Buddy ! ” whispered Tools. 

“One dolla’, then?” 

“If you want to sell them at all,” said 
Jack, “you take them out and put them on 
the logs at the entrance there. We’ll hand 
you over the two dollars when you’re 
through, and on the other side. And if 
you come back again, you’ll get a chance 
later on to do some talking to the proper 
authorities about what became of two of 
[ 110 ] 


RESERVATIONERS AGAIN 


our trolling lines and a box of gimp hooks!” 

Whereupon, rather to the surprise of the 
boys themselves, the remainder of the inter- 
view was concluded in the next five minutes. 

“But they went away sore, all right,” 
said Booky. “You’ll see they’ll be back 
again.” 

“Well, we won’t trouble any,” said Tools. 
“After the way they started in on Ninny 
like that right at the first go off, they de- 
served to be thrown out by the neck!” 

That visit had, however, served to give 
them another “idea.” Now that their 
whereabouts was known to that Reservation 
band — and it would be easy for them to 
hoist their light birch-barks over that bottle- 
neck entrance any time they chose to — 
the boys realized that they would have a 
much more comfortable feeling if they had 
some back-door exit in addition. And 
there was that one low place at the north 
end, which might well be made to serve the 
purpose. 


[HI] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


Accordingly, on her next trip out to the 
jam, the Twenty-footer contained only 
Jack and Tools. They towed the key-log 
into place from the outside: and then, 
being left on the outside, they punted 
around to the north and met the other two 
at that back door. Booky, perhaps from 
memories of Ivanhoe, insisted on calling 
it their sally port. 

Whatever they called it, there was work 
to do on it. In the first place, they were 
not going to leave the Twenty-footer in the 
water. Ninny had at length come timor- 
ously and shamefacedly back to them. 
And they were glad for his sake that they 
now had a job that he could help them with. 
It would serve to give the poor fellow some 
countenance again. 

Booky and Bud passed lines down to the 
two in the boat. They ran them through 
the bow and stern rings. Then they clam- 
bered out, and having been helped in the 
rocky climb, joined the other three in the 
[ 112 ] 


RESERVATIONERS AGAIN 


business of hoisting the Twenty -footer after 
them. In a few minutes they had her up 
and all but hidden under the cedars. In 
the hour that followed, they sorted and 
transferred to her a good half of their sup- 
plies. And now in case of dire necessity 
they could abandon their camp altogether, 
make for their floating home, swing her in 
— if she shipped a little water, what of 
that? — and once more have at least the 
freedom and the leeway of the lake. They 
knew that no canoe or chaloupe existed that 
could overtake them then. 

But the low place at the sally port must 
itself be put into a state of security. And 
here, again, they saw that they could not 
do better than avail themselves of the 
resources which nature had left ready to 
their hands. From the rocks above the 
port, they worked loose some of the criss- 
crossing jungle of charred logs — Ninny’s 
muscles doing as much almost as those 
of all four of them — slid them down root 
[ 113 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


first, and forced them together, just as they 
had done with the logs at the bottle-neck, 
only here they were working on the rock 
instead of on the water. The shore itself 
was not more than three or four feet high, 
but the long ragged roots, standing out and 
upward over it, made a landing almost 
impossible. Once more, too — and this 
was always the great point — there was 
nothing to tell those spruce men that the 
bristling, irregular chevaux de frise was not 
entirely the work of nature herself. As 
for the Twenty-footer, by using their extra 
coil of rope she could be let down anywhere 
where it was not too high for them to follow 
in a sliding drop. 

Stopping only for a cold bite — though 
it was a big one — they went on to work 
out a third idea. This one Tools had had 
long before they had made a job of the first 
and second. That grand-daddy of pines 
could be turned into the most superlative 
of look-outs, or crow’s-nests. 

[ 114 ] 


RESERVATIONERS AGAIN 


As was evident at once, the great pine 
could not be climbed by the use of Jack’s 
spurs alone. A girth line — an old wrinkle 
in the woods — would have to be used as 
well, but it was Tools’ particular idea to use 
both spurs and girth line only once. 

“Here’s where old Job’s ‘ six-inchers’ do 
certainly come in,” he said. “Jocky, old 
man, if you take the hand axe, and both 
pockets full of spikes, and drive ’em in 
zigzag as you go up — you know how they 
do it on telegraph poles — we’ll simply 
have one of those aerial stairways that you 
read about.” 

Jack as the practical member even im- 
proved on that, since the thickness of the 
bark made the holding strength of the 
six-inchers somewhat problematical, for 
each one he cut a notch, though not 
deep enough to let it come out white. He 
kept them all on the one side of the tree, 
too, so that they could be seen only from 
the north, if, indeed, they could be seen 
[ 115 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


from anywhere beyond the island. And 
after he had caught the knack of putting 
his spurs into such a leviathan of trees, 
and of trusting to the good doubled half- 
inch hemp that looped the small of his back 
to the huge barky circumference, and of 
using that little axe so that he could get the 
maximum of power behind it, he began to 
go up hand over hand. 


[ 116 ] 


CHAPTER EIGHT 


THE KEEP AND THE MOUND 


F r^IIERE are certain things which, 
after our first cold gasp, teach us 
anew that it is unsafe to leave 
to the malignity of chance any slightest 
margin whatever. 

When Jack had got perhaps three-quar- 
ters of the way to the top, suddenly he 
stopped. For a moment he lay back on 
his girth-line, as motionless as if he had 
been part of the tree; then letting the axe- 
head drop into his pocket, he went up the 
rest of the way at almost racing speed, 
and as he disappeared under the first big 
brushy branch, and jerkingly unknotted 
himself, the three boys on the ground began 
to understand. 

Faintly but with growing distinctness 
voices came in to their ears. Could they 
[ 117 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


have had the same use of their eyes, they 
would have seen that as they stood there 
open-mouthed a chaloupe full of spruce 
men was entering the labyrinth. 

Sitting up there astride a kind of saddle 
branch, Jack could see that, as if led and 
directed, they were coming straight for 
“Port Arthur” and the bottle-neck. In- 
deed, until he heard their first words, he 
had no doubt at all that they had one of 
those young Indians for a guide. 

“I tell ye ’twas the sound av choppin’.” 
— That was the voice of Irish Mike. 

“An’ I tell youse it was on’y one o’ them 
big yalla woodpeckers. They got a strikin’ 
power that’d drive piles.” 

They came on for another dozen boat 
lengths. 

“Well, I begin to belave ye.” Reflected 
by the water, every word echoed up to the 
crow’s-nest with that amazing clearness 
noticed by aeronauts. “But, begobs, if it 
was as ye say, I’d still hould, niver-the- 
[ 118 ] 


THE KEEP AND MOUND 


less, that the top av that big three is the 
place to spy thim from. Yis, me bhoys, 
an’ if we can’t put eyes on thim anny other 
way, I’ll go in, an’ climb it for ye yet.” 

The laugh was a general but not a good- 
natured one. 

“By gare, I teenk you won’t climb 
heem!” This came from one of the French 
Canadians. 

“I tell ye, wid a good lingth av half -inch, 
and a clove hitch inty her” (Jack had 
to take hold of his saddle-bow) “I’d go 
up it now in a brace of shakes.” 

By this time they were abreast of the jam. 

“An’, bagosh, ’ow you know w’ich h’isl- 
and he’s growin’ h’on?” 

Obviously they took the bottle-neck for 
a former through channel. 

“More’n that, how would you get in?” 
demanded another of the gang, as if the 
question were one of tremendous profundity. 

“I’d schwim in, if nade be.” 

“Ah, I teenk dey be gone down riv’,” a 
[ 119 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


third “Canajun” expressed himself, dis- 
couragedly. 

“An’ I ask ye ag’in, how could they 
git down riv’? Gobs, if ye’re for givin’ 
up the hunt alriddy, I’m not urgin’ ye. I 
tell ye ag’in as I told ye in the beginnin’, 
we’d be a hape sight more sinsible to hade 
thim no more, an’ sit at home at ease. I’m 
thinkin’ ye’ll meet the boss before ye meet 
Ninny ag’in.” 

Then Cash-down, who could hardly sup- 
port himself in his place in the stern, 
showed what the main agent was in their 
crazy persistence in the pursuit. He held 
up a wobbly hand as one who takes the 
solemnest of oaths: “We’re goin’ t’ find 
the mut — we’re goin’ t’ find him, and 
make him finish that bottle — yes, sir, an’ 
the same fer them four beggarin’ little 
whipp-snappers — if we got t’ row, an’ 
row, an’ row, an’ row till the ol’ boats give 
out. Ain’ — ain’ that right, fellers? ” 

“Shu-rure!” 

[ no] 


THE KEEP AND MOUND 


“ V raiment ! 9 9 

“Right yuh are, Cash, an’ all we’re 
sayin’ is that we’ve done our share of rowin’ 
fer to-day. We’re not givin’ up. Not 
fer Jo we ain’t! All we’re sayin’ is, it’s 
back to the case goods fer ours till tomorr’ 
again.” 

With the big Irishman standing un- 
steadily amidships, and still protesting his 
intention “to climb the ould tree in the 
ind,” they slowly turned the chaloupe in 
the hindering rush-beds, and once more 
began to find an uncertain way back to the 
main channel. 

“I know one thing,” said Bud, “after 
this we don’t do any shooting with the 
Twenty-two up here.” 

“No,” said Jack, and they remembered 
afterward that he said it a little queerly, 
“I guess what pot-hunting we do now will 
be done with our bows and arrows.” 

And, under the galvanism of that most 
uncomfortable of hours, they began to see 
[ 1 * 1 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


what they could do toward adding still 
further to their defenses. There was not 
much that they could do. But there was 
one thing. 

We spoke some time ago of a certain 
Port Arthur “rockhead” that was to be 
mentioned more particularly later on. It 
was to the left of the camp. And, but for 
a sort of ledge or sill about eight feet up, 
on that campward face it could hardly have 
been climbed. The top of the diminu- 
tive crag was roughly hollow and broken 
away in the rear, leaving the front like a 
rampart, and now, by using small stumps 
and all the loose pieces of stone in the vicin- 
ity of camp, the boys were able to wall in 
the back of their barbican with a low barri- 
cade that turned it into a sort of conning- 
tower. 

What did give the ridiculous little fortress 
an actual semblance of strength was the 
fact that it was cut off from the main ridge 
of “Port Arthur” by a long, zigzagging, 
[ 122] 


THE KEEP AND MOUND 


bush-grown divide in the rock, which Booky 
was soon christening the “moat.” 

Correspondingly, that conning-tower for- 
tress was itself christened the “keep,” and 
if in their heart of hearts the Four had 
a plentiful lack of confidence in either, at 
any rate they were something, and they 
made the most of it. 

If you are in a position where you have 
every need to keep your courage up, there 
are two things you can do. You can re- 
solve to keep it up, which may possibly 
prove efficacious, or you can find some- 
thing to do which will keep you so busy 
that you will have no time to do any think- 
ing or resolving whatsoever. 

As a commander, Jack was by nature of 
the latter school. As far as that night was 
concerned, they were weary enough to 
sleep without the need of any one’s advising 
them. They got away with supper, took 
an evening plunge in the harbor, made 
[ 123 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


a few arrows, and then, without more ado, 
turned in. 

Next morning Jack announced that un- 
less there were any votes to the contrary 
they would again get busy at the “Great 
Bear.” 

While breakfast was cooking Tools pulled 
himself up to the crow’s-nest. He came 
down to announce “nothing moving, but 
the boom still there.” 

“So is ours,” said Bud, looking out to the 
bottle-neck. 

They got their spades and trowels, and 
made for the bowl. Again they felt as 
they had felt when first they entered it, 
criss-crossed in every direction as the big 
hollow was by those charred and fallen logs, 
and covered above them with that thick 
green fleece of berry-bushes, it was more 
than doubtful if their discovery would ever 
have been made but for Booky’s bird’s-eye 
view in the moonlight. 

“And maybe,” now suggested that same 
[ 124 ] 


THE KEEP AND MOUND 


first authority on mounds, “maybe if we 
take a good look around before we begin 
to dig this morning we’ll find something 
else that’s just as much worth while.” 

They found nothing — at least it seemed 
nothing worth while then; the time was 
soon to come when they were to consider 
it something very much worth while indeed. 
This was a little fall-away in the shore-side 
rim of the bowl, half concealed in the cedars 
under a great screen of fox grapes. Up 
those fox grapes — providing that one of 
those looped and ropy fox-grape vines was 
lowered down to him — a person might 
readily climb from the water. Booky 
wanted to believe that this was a secret 
passage known only to those great chiefs 
and medicine men who no doubt came to 
the Great Bear by night to practise sacred 
rites. But by now the others were of the 
opinion that it was about time they were 
getting busy and practising a few rites with 
spade and trowel. 

[ 125 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


The egg-shaped, or altar mound, lifted 
itself some six or seven feet above the level. 
They had found those ash-streaks between 
three and four feet down. They intended 
to dig scientifically. According to Dr. 
Gordon the first laws of science were 
thoroughness and care, and they went to 
work with system. 

There was no point in making a little 
hole, or a lot of holes, at random. Now 
that they had got down to that red-gray 
veiny stratum in the center, before they 
went deeper they would try to lay it bare in 
all directions, for it could not underlie 
the entire mound. According to Booky 
if this mound was to be like almost every 
other that had ever been investigated, 
somewhere beneath those ash-streaks would 
their finds be made. 

The ash stratum extended some eight 
feet north and south and some ten feet 
east and west. At one time, therefore, it 
must have been a bed on which had burned 
[ 126 ] 


THE KEEP AND MOUND 


a pyre capable of roasting a moose. In 
the very center they met with cakey layers 
that had become almost a fire-clay. In 
more regular layers, too, they found a 
great number of flat stones which had plainly 
been cracked into pieces by the heat. What 
purpose they had served originally who 
could tell? The boys cleared them care- 
fully away, along with the clayey earth. 

They were now using the trowels, or 
indeed their hands, much more than they 
were the spades, for there was one thing 
they were determined not to do, and that 
was to destroy anything in its discovery. 
Presently they began to turn up their first 
bits of broken pottery, and flint chips, and 
half-worked quartzite. 

After that they broke up every big piece 
of earth between their fingers. Nothing 
whatever was going to escape them. One 
of the logs which they had moved from the 
middle of the mound was flattish toward 
the root and not omitting even the smallest 
[ 127] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


fragment, they laid everything together 
upon that. 

“I hereby christen it the original Major 
Maggs’ Great Bear Island Museum,” said 
Booky, stopping for a moment to take 
breath. 

“You come along here,” said Jack, 
“and Ninny, too — but where is Ninny?” 

Ninny had disappeared. 

“He’s likely over at the other side of the 
island after berries,” said Tools. For it 
must be confessed that when Ninny had 
worked as much as he felt was good for a 
wild man’s health he had a habit of going 
off for a much needed rest. 

“All right,” said Jack; “And Booky, this 
is what I was wanting you for. It’s a big 
rock, seems to be the size of a pumpkin. 
You can put some of your superfluous 
energies to helping me loosen it up and 
get it out.” 

It was a smooth rock, but the earth 
had taken firm hold of it, and its rounded 
[128] 


THE KEEP AND MOUND 


sides afforded no possible gripping surface. 
“If I try prying her with the spade,” said 
Jack again, “I might smash something in 
close beside her. We’ll have to dig her 
clearer yet with the trowels.” They had 
been working hardly ten seconds when, as 
if with the same feeling, both sat back and 
looked at each other almost gasping. Then 
Booky bent forward again, cleared the plas- 
tery dirt from the top of that stone, and 
rapped upon it with the handle of his trowel. 
It was hollow. 


[ 129 ] 


CHAPTER NINE 

THE TWENTY-TWO 

A ND it isn’t any stone, either,” 
Booky cried; 4 ‘it’s some sort 
of great big pot, placed upside 
down — that’s what! It’s rough enough, 
— it’s all out of true, — but that’s what 
it is!” 

By this time the other two were kneeling 
beside it, and for five minutes they all 
burrowed like hypnotized terriers. 

When they were almost at the bottom, 
they had to open the hole still wider, for 
either that huge inverted pot was resting 
on something, or it had some kind of saucer- 
like lid. Not till all was clear could they 
lift it out, and then they saw that the 
thing at the bottom was a lid. 

But they would not have taken it off — 
[ 130 ] 


THE TWENTY-TWO 


at any rate, not then — had not the tug 
of getting it from the ground loosened it in 
spite of them. They could see that it had 
been made practically air-tight by a sort of 
wax, or gum. Red-spruce gum it might 
have been, though it was black and harsh 
and brittle now. And, when the lid had 
come away of itself, there was no good 
reason why they should not go on and ex- 
amine the contents. 

Inside, there was first a heavy layer of 
dry, dry birch-bark. Beneath this, or, if 
you looked at it from the way in which 
the pot had been buried, above this, there 
lay a rough, uneven disk of hammered 
copper. It was now oxidized to a vivid 
green, but there could still be made out 
upon it a clearly cut representation or 
totem sign of that great bear mound itself. 
And the chemical action of the salts of 
copper had also served to preserve the thing 
which for ages had been resting on that 
copper disk. 


[ 131 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


This was something large and heavy and 
oval-shaped. It had been most closely 
and curiously wrapped in a coarse, pigment- 
marked fabric that might well have been 
taken for present-day sacking, or burlap. 
Perhaps its color had once been a sacer- 
dotal white, but the passing of how many 
centuries had changed it to the coffee- 
stained hue of mummy swathings. The 
Four undid it with a feeling of awe and 
reverence. Inside, egg-white and hard, and 
as perfect as when it had been placed there, 
was a huge bear’s skull. 

They could do nothing for a time but 
let their arms drop and stand gaping at it. 
Then with all the care they could they 
wrapped it up again, and carried everything 
with infinite precaution to the broadest 
part of their “museum log.” They had 
felt a little played out before. Now they 
felt equal to working without a break for 
the next two days. 

“But just before we do pitch in again,” 
[ 132 ] 


THE TWENTY-TWO 


said Tools, “ maybe I’d better take another 
look around from the crow’s-nest.” 

He had little more than got himself to 
the top of the bowl, when he stopped short. 
He had almost walked into half a dozen 
of their Reservation visitors of the day 
before, who had silently mounted the path 
from camp. At the same instant the first 
of them caught sight of that “museum log.” 

Now, that there may be no misunder- 
standing as to the situation and what was 
swiftly to grow out of it, you must know 
that never had there been any claim, direct 
or fanciful, that the Reservation extended 
to those Lunge Lake islands. Major Maggs 
could have been named as their present 
owner by about every young Indian who 
paddled the lake in birch-bark. For the 
matter of that, their own tribe were much 
more truly newcomers in the spruce country 
than the white men were themselves. 

The ancient and forgotten people who 
had piled up that Great Bear mound were 
[ 133 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


nearer of kin to the Aztecs than they were 
to that party of prowlers on the edge of 
the bowl, and very well did the latter 
know it. But for years they had had a 
most profitable market for relics, and that 
anyone else should discover any was not 
to be borne. They might be content to 
take trolling lines and gimp hooks only by 
stealth, but the things which they now 
beheld with fury on that log they were 
resolved to seize at once and violently. 
Springing down into the bowl, two of them 
made for it with snarls of challenge. 

Luckily the first log that the Four had 
had to move lay on its roots between, and 
acted as a bulwark. The “Argue-nots” in 
their turn sprang out of the pit, flung 
themselves forward to man that bulwark, 
and hold those first assailants off. 

It resulted only in bringing others fiercely 
to their assistance. At the same time they 
jerked their heads over their shoulders and 
sent a sort of summoning war-cry across 
[ 134 ] 


THE TWENTY-TWO 


the island. It was plain that there were 
still more “ Reservationers ” than had yet 
appeared. 

And no sooner was that evident to Jack 
than he slid down the further side of the 
mound, and flew through the bowl for camp. 
“I’ll be right back, fellows,” he cried, “I 
won’t be a minute.” 

But he did not get back a second before 
there was every need of him. A round 
dozen young Indians had come up on 
the run. In another moment they would 
have taken the defenses on the leap 
and no doubt having taken them, they 
would have handled the defenders very 
evilly. But now Jack came right through 
them. 

To tell the truth they opened up to let 
him through, and the next minute the 
other boys saw why. In his hands he 
carried the Twenty-two. 

During the moments which immediately 
ensued, the raiders in front began to go 
[ 135 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


through the form of parleying: “Give 
ten dolla’. ” 

“Yes, start that again — do.” 

“Give five dolla’.” Their front line, 
as if unconsciously, had by degrees been 
extending itself. 

“Five dollars for leave to dig, no doubt, 
and every man jack of you mighty well 
knows that Major Maggs — Look out, 
Jocky! Look out!” 

The young rascals on the left were all 
jumping the log together. 

“Get back, now! Get back with you!” 
Jack covered the “museum” with a shout. 
“I’ll just give you another five seconds.” 

But, in getting back, they had managed 
to draw off the defenders’ entire attention. 
The latter had only time to turn, and meet 
another and a vastly more dangerous rush 
from the other flank. Had not Bud and 
Tools thrown themselves in front, Jack 
would have lost his gun. 

As it was, there followed two minutes of 
[ 136 ] 


THE TWENTY-TWO 


desperate rough and tumble. But the gun 
remained the deciding factor. You may 
have your man down, but if one of his 
friends is in a position at any moment to 
use you as a target you very quickly let him 
up again. Jack swung the Twenty-two 
first this way, then that. “If you make me 
shoot, now,” he cried, “if you make me 
shoot! And, mind, I don’t want to.” 

They had no faintest desire to make him 
shoot. In twos and threes, they melted 
before him, and leaped back to their own 
side again. 

More than that, the felonious young 
band had now exhausted all the tactics 
known to their none-too-active brains. A 
simultaneous assault from front and rear 
would doubtless have been their final 
attempt, but the presence of the pit be- 
hind the boys put that out of the question. 

They were beaten, they had met their 
“stand-off” — for the present, and they 
wasted little time making up their minds to 
[ 137 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 

that themselves. Grinning a vicious ac- 
knowledgment of the situation, they gradu- 
ally backed away toward the harbor again. 
Needless to say, the camp was at their 
mercy, but, to the boys, the “museum” 
now seemed much the more important, 
and they stayed by it. They remained 
where they were till, finally, the splash of 
canoe-bottoms, hitting the water on the 
flat (and from the deceiving echoes one 
might have believed that some of the canoes 
had been launched at the north end of the 
island), gave notice that their visitors had 
portaged out over the dam again, and 
were gone. 

They were gone, but none of the Four 
was so simple as to comfort himself for a 
moment with any belief that the incident 
was closed. 

“They’ll only be back again to try to 
jump us to-night,” said Bud, “that’s what 
they did with that South Falls party — 
and the bunch from Green Harbor.” 

[ 138 ] 


THE TWENTY-TWO 


“Not much doubt of it, I’m afraid,” 
said Jack. “Well, we’ll simply have to do 
our best to get up some proper sort of 
reception for them.” 

“And, gosh, Jack,” said Booky — “about 
your bringing out the Twenty -two. It 
did seem, of course, as if she was the only 
thing, but do you think you ought to 
have gone so far as that, you know?” 

“Of course,” seconded Tools, “they didn’t 
make you shoot, but just supposing that 
they had?” 

“Then they’d have had a great deal 
more power over her than I’ve got.” He 
lifted the empty breach to the level of their 
eyes : “ Fellows, I might as well own up to it. 
She’s been plugged again for the last week.” 
“No!” 

“Say!” 

“Oh, Jimmy-o!” 

“That’s right. She’s all in for this trip. 
There’s been about three inches of lead in 
the middle of her barrel ever since the day 
[ 139 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


after I shot the gray squirrel, and that 
was the only thing that let me think of 
bringing her out to-day.” 

They had no language for it. It seemed 
to put new spirit in them all, and new 
spirit was a thing of which they now felt 
every need. 

They felt a still greater need of it a 
scant five minutes later, when Tools in 
his turn mounted to the crow’s-nest. Ex- 
ploring the headwaters of a heavily wooded 
bay to the northeast were both chaloupes , 
and there was something diabolically 
thorough and persistent in their crazy 
movements, even at that distance. If for 
a few hours the boys had succeeded in for- 
getting that spruce gang, manifestly this 
was a long way from that spruce gang’s 
forgetting them. It was no mere matter 
of substituting Reservationers for the first 
enemy. If the gang succeeded in finding 
them, they could look forward to settling 
with them both. 


[ 140] 


THE TWENTY-TWO 


Yet Tools’ half hour in the crow’s-nest 
at the same time eased their minds of 
another burden. Ninny, it will be recalled, 
had disappeared shortly after they had 
commenced digging, and to add to their 
other troubles they had begun to be de- 
cidedly bothered about him. But now, a 
second time Tools began excitedly to wig- 
wag. There was something moving in the 
labyrinth away over on the left in the 
water. 

It was Ninny, and, wherever he had 
been on that riskiest of days, he had not 
only come back swimming — swimming in 
shirt and trousers — but he had brought 
back with him his famous bow and arrows. 
Wholly careless of the fact that he was 
shedding water like some huge spaniel, he 
proudly put his armament on exhibition 
on the beach. 

Much as they would otherwise have 
wished to, the prospect of what might be 
in store for them that night gave the boys 
[ 141 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


no time to do any admiring then. “Yes, 
they’re fine, Ninny, fine,” they said. 
“We’ll look at them a little later on,” 
and then, save for Bud, who in his turn 
took the crow’s-nest watch, they got hur- 
riedly to work. 

First they hastened back to the mound, 
and gathered their museum together, and 
planted it in a temporary cache beneath the 
big fox-grape vine. Then they started for 
the bottle-neck, and by this time there 
was a hopeful but ruthless gleam in the 
“Argue-not ” eye. For, if they were to have 
a night visit from those Reservationers, 
Tools, for his part, had already begun to 
have a few extremely promising ideas. 
And now, with various things in their 
hands, they climbed out upon the two little 
granite headlands which looked down upon 
their log-filled harbor mouth. In the real 
Port Arthur, Booky recollected that they 
were called Golden Hill and Tiger’s Tail, 
and the same names served their purpose 
[14g] 


THE TWENTY-TWO 


now. Jack worked from one side, and 
Tools and Booky from the other, and 
Ninny followed all alike with equal wonder. 
While they worked, too, still other ideas 
came to them. Exactly what their nature 
was need not be told in detail here. Enough 
to say that they were even more promising 
than Tools’ first had been, and when the 
three had finished, they could tell them- 
selves that they had gone some way toward 
making that reception such a reception as 
any Chippewa surprise party might long 
remember. They came back to camp and 
ate supper. Again they were beginning 
to feel equal to things. 

“Well, anyway, we won’t do any worry- 
ing yet,” said Jack. 

“No, there’s never any sense in doing 
that,” supported the stolid Bud. 

“Besides,” said Booky, “we always want 
to remember that even if they do get in 
and clean out the camp, that’s a long way 
from their cleaning us out, too. All we 
[ 143 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


have to do is simply to put for the Twenty- 
footer.” 

And then, like a ghost at the feast, 
the same benumbing, paralyzing thought 
seemed to take hold of all four of them at 
once. For an hour, and more than an hour, 
those young Indians had had the entire 
run of the island. Now that the boys 
remembered, too, it might not have been 
the echoes of canoe launching that had come 
down to them from its northerly shore. 

Jack turned about, with the others after 
him. They sped sickenedly up the rocks 
and over the main ridge and through the 
endless maddening tangle of logs and 
bushes to the sally-port. 

The Twenty-footer was gone! 


[ 144 ] 


CHAPTER TEN 


THE BEAR’S HEAD 


VEN Ninny seemed overwhelmed, 
^ but it was Tools who, as the judge’s 
S on, spoke first: “That’s all right,” 
he said, “that’s all right. That’s stealing 
on a penitentiary scale, and now we’ve 
got our hold on them.” 

“If you put it up to me,” said Bud, “I’d 
just as soon have my hold on the boat.” 

“And what are we going to do?” asked 
Booky. Instinctively the question was sent 
in Jack’s direction. 

“Well,” he said grimly, “it’s pretty 

bad, but we’ve scored once, and they’ve 
scored once. They’ve got our backs up 
against the wall, I don’t know as people 
fight any the worse for that. If we’ve got 

to, we’ll go home on a raft.” They started 
slowly back toward the bowl. “And for 

[ 145] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


one thing, if the barefaced thieves do come 
in on us to-night, we can lay ourselves out 
to score again this time in a way that’ll last 
them till they’re bald-headed.” 

But for the time being they might as well 
begin to think of something else. Booky 
elected to take a turn in the crow’s-nest. 
The others built up their fire again. 

“And, Ninny,” said Jack, “we haven’t 
really had a look yet at that great old bow 
of yours.” It was like their own, one of the 
regulation, old-style Indian make, winged, 
and a little less than six feet long. It had 
no decorations, but it carried the marks of 
the use it had had, and was as uncouthly 
formidable a piece of hickory as any one 
could wish to meet. As for the arrows, 
Ninny, when in action, carried them in 
a species of birch-bark quiver at his belt, 
alongside the old hack-bladed hunting-knife 
with which he had made them. They were 
primitive shafts of ash, blunt-headed, un- 
feathered, and none too straight, but he 
[ 146 ] 


THE BEAR’S HEAD 


had learned to shoot like Robin Hood with 
them — his skill had long supplied talk for 
the spruce camps. And there was that in 
his wide-open and expectant face as he 
displayed his weapons now, which called 
upon the boys to marvel as if they were 
examining the finest work of a Milanese 
armourer. 

There was this, too: Though Ninny and 
his bow had been seen many times together, 
never before had any one else set hand upon 
it. When he had been drawn to make one 
of his hapless visits to the Reservation or 
the spruce camp, he had always left bow 
and arrows and hunting-knife behind in 
some ever-changing hiding-place. The fact 
of his bringing in those treasures to Port 
Arthur was an unworded declaration to 
the Four that henceforth his fate lay 
wholly with their own. And coming at the 
hour it did there was something to warm 
their hearts in that. 

Tools got the hand-axe and split up a 
[ 147 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


big stick of pine. “Now show us how to 
make some arrows of the right sort for our 
bows,” he said. 

With a huge importance Ninny got out 
his knife and began to show them. It 
would have been idle to pretend that their 
souls were not beset by manifold fears and 
anxieties. The loss of the Twenty-footer 
lay heavy upon them. It is one thing to 
burn your ships when in the enemy’s coun- 
try, and very much another to have them 
stolen. They were yet to know, too, what 
the night had still in store for them. 

Of one thing they could be certain: 
Those Reservationers, if they did come 
down on them, would come at a time 
when, ordinarily, they would have been 
asleep for hours. Those hours they must 
now put in, and that first night upon 
the island had taught them how long such 
hours can be. For lack of anything else 
to do they went on with their arrow-making, 
and between the four of them they ended 
[ 148 ] 


THE BEAR'S HEAD 


by piling up “butt-shafts” enough, if aimed 
aright, to bring down all the small game 
in North Wantebec County. They lay in 
drifts about the fire. 

So passed the time till eleven. Then 
they let their fire die down, divided up, 
and resolutely made their final disposi- 
tions. About half -past one Jack was 
sitting in the “saddle branch” of the 
crow’s-nest. The sky was blurrily over- 
cast. Hardly a star was visible. And to 
any one who had not spent the last 
twenty minutes sharpening his eyes in 
the darkness, nothing, assuredly, could 
have been visible upon the dusky expanses 
of the lake. “If they really are going 
to come to-night,” he told himself — and 
then he stopped as if a hand had grasped 
him. A succession of moving objects was 
even then commencing to enter the western 
side of the islands, and those lights were 
coming as silently almost as if they had 
been the shadows of themselves! 

[ 149 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


He stayed only long enough to pull him- 
self together. Then he dropped down that 
ladder of “ six-inchers ” to the deserted 
camp, and sped out along the now well- 
known path to Golden Hill. 

In the bushes, awaiting him, lay Bud, 
and as soon as Jack had flattened himself 
beside him, Bud reached out and pulled 
something. It was a tightly stretched 
copper wire from the rod-mending kit; 
but, for the present, it was a signal wire. 

And the signal was answered, for, 
twenty feet across the “bottle-neck,” on 
the end of Tiger’s Tail, lay Ninny, Tools, 
and Booky. Tools was still hopelessly 
adjuring Ninny that he must keep quiet, 
no matter what might happen, “and he 
ought to have done as they asked him, and 
stayed back there in camp.” But Ninny’s 
mouth was now half open. His ears had 
already picked up the drip of paddles, and 
he was peering into the channel blackness 
in an excitement that was almost a palpi- 
[ 150 ] 


THE BEAR'S HEAD 


tation. Another minute and his whole 
body seemed to surge together. The Four 
knew that the moment had come. 

One would not have believed that the 
band could handle their canoes with such 
stealth and rapidity. While the boys were 
still straining their eyes to make them out, 
the first canoe had swung in alongside the 
jam, her occupants were out of her, lift- 
ing her to the logs, and ready to slide her 
in again upon the harbor side. 

To tell the whole story, Jack, who was 
to begin it, was not quite ready, but that 
half minute of delay could not have been 
better timed by the most elaborate planning. 
The jam was crowded and jostling with 
young Indians, when there was a light 
scratch, and, from nowhere, something 
faintly glowing and spitting dropped among 
them. The next moment, the whole little 
gorge was filled with a bomb-like flare, and 
the horridly dazzling, blue-white lightning- 
light of one of Tools’ magnesium “ flashes.” 
[ 151 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


The visitor under whose feet the bomb 
had lit leaped straight up into the air, and 
his face shone out for a single instant. 
Then, diving like a frog, he went back into 
the channel. His comrades packed them- 
selves together in one big, kicking clump. 
And barely could they think themselves 
once more back in the protection of the 
darkness when from the end of Tools’ 
bass-line another “magnesium” reached 
the jam. 

At this second bomb one of those Reser- 
vationers, doubtless possessed of superior 
knowledge, did for a moment believe 
that he knew what it was. “Flish light! 
Flish light!” he cried. But at that mo- 
ment, though Jack had not precisely 
aimed it so, the third bomb found its 
settling point fairly on top of the ex- 
plainer’s head. He waited neither for the 
explosion nor to offer further explanations. 
Before the flash could come he had 
“frogged” it frantically in his turn, sending 
[152] 


THE BEAR’S HEAD 


the water almost to the level of Golden 
Hill. 

Meanwhile that third lurid, fearfully 
exploding hiss-and-glare was followed by 
one manifold and squawking howl. Gun- 
fire would have been understood, and any 
sort of lightning that was accompanied by 
thunder. As it was, the mass of them 
stood there, too wholly unnerved even 
to be able to take to the water. Seemingly 
they waited only for death. 

What they were given might have been 
described in storekeeping language as 
“something just as good.” Sliding ap- 
parently on nothing at all, though in reality 
it was suspended from that invisible signal 
wire, descended the skull from the Great 
Bear. The jaws had been fastened open, 
and kept so with more wire. And jaws, 
teeth, and eye sockets — the whole head, 
indeed — were all alike livid with one 
grisly, green-crawling glow. Well they 
might glow, too, for the phosphorus of a 
[ 153 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


whole box of dampened matches had gone 
into it. . . . 

The wire had been run from a point well 
back on Golden Hill to a bush far out 
upon the “Tail,” hence it took almost the 
direction of the gorge itself, and as the 
skull dipped further and further down, to 
those huddled, shrieking young Indians, it 
seemed to be coming directly at them. 
There was no more foolishly sophisticated 
talk about “flish lights,” then. 

But once again Jack was bending far 
over the little gorge, and “Now!” he 
whispered, “now!” 

In the shadow of his hat Bud lit one last 
silent match, touched off one single fuse, 
and at the end of Jack’s pickerel line 
the makings of still one more miniature 
volcano dropped upon the jam. 

This time it was not a magnesium 
“flash.” It was that cone of red fire that 
Tools had left over from the Fourth. 
Half-way down, the huge phosphorescent 
[ 154 ] 



Three of the canoes were half filled with the 'panic-stricken 
already, page 155 














. 




























By - • 























THE BEAR’S HEAD 


skull had stopped from its own weight, 
and the red fire “whoofed” out and leaped 
up almost immediately beneath it. 

At first the “ Argue-nots” could give little 
attention to its effect upon their visitors, 
because of its effect upon one of their own 
company. Up to then Tools and Booky 
had between them succeeded in imparting 
some sort of courage and assurance to 
Ninny, but at that inexpressibly horrible 
combination of grinning bear’s head and 
red fire, nothing they could tell him was 
any longer of avail. He buried his face in 
a bed of wintergreens and emitted roar 
upon roar which might truly have been 
taken for the voice of the offended spirit of 
the Great Bear itself. 

At any rate, that was how it was inter- 
preted now. Three of the canoes were half 
filled with the panic-stricken already. The 
one that had been lifted to the logs was 
jerked, thrust, and hurled back into the 
water again, and every last young Reser- 
[ 155 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


vationer who had not succeeded in getting 
into the three first to flee now attempted 
to board this final ark of refuge. As it fled 
down the channel they were still pulling 
themselves gibberingly over its gunwales, 
and for the succeeding half hour the whole 
band could be heard yelling a terror that 
grew rather than decreased, as, bereft 
of all sense of direction by their panic, 
they blundered fearfully in and out of those 
doubly blind alleys of the labyrinth. 

Until almost the last yell had died away, 
Ninny kept his face in that muffle of winter- 
green and rock moss, and his hands locked 
about his head. But when those yells had 
begun to die away, and, by uncovering 
first one ear and then the other he could be 
doubly certain of it, when, in addition, he 
looked down into the bottle-neck and saw 
that one sense confirmed the other and his 
enemies were entirely scattered, then Mr. 
Ninny Noggins, wild man, underwent the 
most amazing of transformations. 

[156] 


THE BEAR’S HEAD 


He rose to his full height and shook his 
hairy countenance after the departed with 
an expression of blood-curdling ferocity. 
He ran out to the very verge of the rock 
and kicked after them, and it was such a 
kick as, had any of them remained behind, 
must have removed them from off the face 
of the earth. In fact it was plain that the 
idea Ninny wished to convey was that in 
reality it was he who had put those Reser- 
vationers to flight. Nor did he hesitate to 
throw out the broadest hints, truculently 
aimed in the direction of these spruce 
gangers, that if they, too, would only come 
on, now, an even more awful fate would be 
in store for them. Then, as they still 
continued to cower in their lair, Ninny let 
himself go in mocking and triumph over 
them in a mounting, martial dance of 
victory. 

The Four gradually worked him back 
to camp. They had little thought of dis- 
sembling their own feelings at the way the 
[157] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


night had gone. It had been both magnifi- 
cent and a great deal better than war. In 
five minutes one enemy had probably been 
settled with for the next month. It made 
them feel almost as if they had finished 
with the spruce gang, too. They piled 
wood on their fire, and gave each other the 
grip, and went revellingly back over it all 
again and again and again. 

But to Ninny, nothing could have been 
more inadequate; what was the use of 
winning a victory so unparalleled, indeed, 
if you didn’t know how to celebrate it 
accordingly. 

Talked out at last, the boys rolled them- 
selves in their sleeping-bags and turned in. 
A week ago they would have been unable 
to sleep, but now, in another half hour, 
they were sleeping too deeply even to 
dream. Filling them was that most goodly 
of sensations which comes to us when, 
having been thrown wholly upon our own 
resources, we begin to find that with a little 
[ 158 ] 


THE BEAR’S HEAD 


confidence those resources may be made 
entirely equal to our need. Meanwhile, 
round and round the fire went Ninny, 
in something which must have been very 
like the arm-flinging, high-kicking, ecstati- 
cally triumphant performance with which 
those Reservationers would doubtless have 
celebrated their own victory had they 
only won it. 


[159] 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 

MUSEUM AND FORTRESS 

A ND when, late next morning, Bud, 
Tools, and Booky sleepily unrolled 
themselves, Jack was nowhere to 
be seen. A few minutes later, however, 
he showed himself. He had three fair-sized 
bass, caught with bacon scraps from above 
the “secret passage,” and he now began 
to get them ready for the pan. 

He had already been up in the crow’s- 
nest, too. The boom was still there; 
otherwise all was serene. 

They set to work to get breakfast. Con- 
sidering that half their supplies had gone 
with the Twenty-footer, and in spite of 
every resolve not to think about it, the 
memory of her loss came back upon them 
almost hourly, they might well begin to use 
their rods again. It was a question indeed 
[ 160 ] 


MUSEUM AND FORTRESS 


if they wouldn’t be wise to save the scant 
two or three pounds of bacon they still 
had left, for bait, and it was only by one 
lucky chance in ten that the bass would bite 
at it. The judge’s famous pilot biscuits, 
too, had now begun to come in very oppor- 
tunely. The sole afflicting thought was 
that two whole lockers full of them were 
gone with the Twenty -footer. 

There were compensations, however: If 
the boom was still there, no chaloupes were 
in sight, and while the Four meant in no 
way to relax the regularity of their visits 
to the crow’s-nest, everything indicated 
that they might count on another, and this 
time an almost care-free, day at the Great 
Bear. 

They found nothing more that could 
compare with that first unexampled pot 
and its contents; they would have been 
asking much had they expected to. But 
what they did find was in a state of preser- 
vation that gave it a treble value. 

[ 161 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


For the most part the pottery in such 
mounds is either crushed by the weight of 
earth above it, or, in time, becomes gradually 
softened and rotted by the dampness of 
the soil. In the case of that egg mound in 
front of the Great Bear, the layer of stones 
the boys had found, and under them that 
stratum of natural fire-clay, had acted as 
vaulting and water-shed together. Of the 
seven small pots which they took out in the 
course of that day’s digging, five were abso- 
lutely intact, and the two which were broken 
could very easily be fitted together again. 

Unlike the big one, too, which had ap- 
parently been molded for strength alone, 
the little pots all showed some rude and 
primitive attempt at decoration. This 
might consist of little more than bands of 
dotting and saw-tooth and diamond work, 
but they served to establish the fact that 
the people who raised those mounds were 
almost certainly northern. The curved 
line in such pottery decoration is peculiarly 
[ 162 ] 


MUSEUM AND FORTRESS 


the sign manual of such mound-building 
tribes as have emigrated from the south. 

Inside those little pots and around them, 
they found a wealth of other things. There 
were beads of copper, of catlinite, of 
blue quartz, and of some sort of reddish 
stone. The same reddish stone appeared 
again in a large, plain pipe head. There 
were three other pipes, found together 
in the biggest of the unbroken pots, and 
they had evidently been made to represent 
some animal. Very probably they, too, 
were effigies of the Great Bear. And an 
amulet of soapstone might have been meant 
for either a bear or a bird. The mound- 
builders were not the most realistic of 
artists, but they did well enough. 

Shortly after noon Ninny, who all morn- 
ing had been in a state of the greatest 
exultation, disappeared again. 

“But his bow’s here yet,” said Jack, who 
went back to investigate, “so no doubt 
he’ll be around all hunky by the next meal 
[ 163 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


hour. Very likely he’s got another ‘sprise’ 
for us.” 

And, it may here be said, never did any- 
one prophesy more truly. 

But they had got to work at their mound 
again. There were two splendid specimens 
of “toggle-heads,” those long, eye-holed, 
many-barbed shafts of flint, which seem to 
have been used in hunting exactly as the 
detachable head of a harpoon is used to-day. 
Plain, ordinary flints and “celts” and 
arrow-heads there were in dozens. It was 
as if almost every important member of 
the tribe had laid some token on the bed 
of the mound before the main layer of 
earth had been spread upon it and the fire 
set burning. 

There were stone axes, the heads of 
hammers and war clubs, gouges of argillite, 
bored pendants or sinkers, little chert disks, 
drills and chippers, knives and scrapers, and 
as many more of those prehistoric imple- 
ments which we name only by guessing at 
[164] 


MUSEUM AND FORTRESS 


their use. Even those capacious new cabi- 
nets of the Club museum would not be 
enough for them. Tools all but wore out 
his camera making photographs. He carried 
it to the top of the crow’s-nest to get a 
series of bird’s-eye views. Reservationers, 
spruce men, the stolen Twenty-footer, 
Ninny himself — all were for the time 
forgotten. 

Nor was it difficult for the Four to know 
when they had exhausted that inestimable 
treasure house. Virtually everything found 
came from the same level. Beneath that 
level, any one who had dug so much as a 
post-hole could see that the soil — and in 
several places they touched the rock — 
had never been disturbed. The circle, too, 
within which that treasury had been estab- 
lished, was scarcely less cleanly marked 
and limited. By the end of the afternoon 
they had no longer any possible ground for 
hoping that by going further they might 
find still more. There remained only that 
[ 165 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


duty of all true and genuine archeologists 
— the filling in of the pit again, and the 
conscientious restoration of the mound to 
what, outwardly at least, had been its 
state when they had found it. 

The sun had set. But there remained 
still more to do, and, if it was anywise 
possible, they wished to finish up their work 
that night. Who knew that Boss Hallewell 
would not be back by the morrow. And 
when Tools came down from his “go” in 
the “nest,” Bud did not take his place 
immediately. For an hour all four turned 
in upon the job together. Indeed, even 
when Bud did leave for the “grand-daddy,” 
he did not make his climb at once. He 
stopped at the camp to start the fire again. 
Then he made experiment to test how a 
brush of horsetails would answer as a 
frying-pan scourer. And finally he dug out 
a biscuit to take aloft with him. 

It was a mere chance that led him, when 
half-way up, to lean out in the afterglow 
[ 166 ] 



Ninny was swimming like some great hunted sea-otter, page 1G7 































































































































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MUSEUM AND FORTRESS 


and look down the lake. Though Bud 
might be the most phlegmatic of youths, 
what he saw left him feebly hesitating 
whether to go on to the top or to drop 
straight down to the ground again. What 
he did was to give their club call — the 
“ ka-ronk 99 of a kingfisher — wave desper- 
ately to the others to get back to camp, 
and then pull himself pantingly onto the 
saddle branch as best he could. 

Across the narrows which separated the 
eastern main shore from the islands, Ninny 
was swimming like some great hunted sea- 
otter, and not a hundred yards behind 
came both those spruce-camp craft. They 
were coming at a pace, too, the raging 
frenzy of which was plainly inspired by 
something a great deal more than the mere 
sight of Ninny, and Bud could feel that 
had he started on that swim with anything 
less than the lead that he had had, his 
chance would have been black indeed. As 
it was, still some ten yards ahead, he made 
[ 167 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


the nearest island. Plunging through the 
underwoods that covered it, he passed the 
little strait dividing it from the next before 
the first chaloupe could go about and make 
the detour, and by the time the pur- 
suers had reached the northern end of the 
second island, all sight of him was lost to 
them completely. They could hear him, 
though. There were the two boats, and 
as their oarsmen now caught crabs, now 
picked up clogging trailers of weeds, and 
now fouled the bank, one could see that 
they had that in their hearts which would 
have taken them after Ninny to Lake 
Superior, if necessary. Again, as he dis- 
appeared in the midmost center of the 
labyrinth, he gave them one flying glimpse, 
and the roar of objurgation with which they 
followed him, might well have blasted his 
every bone and sinew as he swam. But 
what closed like clamps upon the heart 
of Bud was that Ninny was taking the 
gang straight to that cove-like channel 
[ 168 ] 


MUSEUM AND FORTRESS 


from which opened the entrance to “Port 
Arthur.” 

Yet again, by now, he had a good two 
minutes lead, and he had flipped himself 
up on the jam, dived again on the other 
side, and was out of sight around the crook- 
ing harbor mouth before the chaloupe, 
which was then ahead, was entering the 
once more quiet water. 

Bud could breathe almost freely again. 
The chaloupe , with Irish Mike again com- 
manding, and Cash-down at the steer- 
ing sweep, had already passed the bottle- 
neck, when suddenly Cash-down raised a 
whoop of ferocious enlightenment. He 
stopped the heavy craft with a double-arm, 
wrenching jerk that all but snapped his 
oar, jumped to the logs, picked up some- 
thing, and held it high before the vision of 
the remainder of the gang. 

From the top of the “grand-daddy,” 
strain his eyes through the dark as he might, 
Bud could not make it out, but he was 
[ 169 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


to hear what it was before the hour had 
passed. Those gestures of defiance in 
Ninny’s martial dance of the night before 
which had been directed at Loggers’ Inlet, 
had been no mere empty threats. He had 
stolen down to the quarters of the gang. 
Unhappy chance had shown him where 
they had cached their surplus store of liquor 
— for Irish Mike knew his men too well 
to let them lay hands on all of it at once. 
To Ninny, and with cause, those sealed and 
gilt-topped bottles also were the enemy, 
and with one large round stone he had 
destroyed them all. Jombateest had come 
upon him just when he had finished with the 
last of them, and added its “scalp” — or 
head, if you prefer — to the double handful 
already in his pocket. 

Of the rest enough has been told already. 
It was one of those ragged bottle-tops that 
Cash-down had picked up on the jam. 
In the camp, Ninny, having exhibited the 
rest of them with a limitless triumph to 
[ 170 ] 


MUSEUM AND FORTRESS 


three stupefied “ Argue-nots,” had now re- 
sumed his Pyrric dance of victory about 
the fire in doubled, nay in quadrupled 
ecstasy. 

“Go on around,” roared Irish Mike to 
the second chaloupe , which was under the 
charge of Jombateest, “go on around an’ 
kape him from gittin’ out the other side. 
For it’s in there his hole is, somewheres. 
An’ man! hadn’t I an idea of it all along?” 

The second chaloupe , in a water-threshing 
circuit, kept on past harbor mouth and 
secret passage and sally-port. The next 
few strokes showed her crew that they had 
to do not with two islands but with one. 
In addition to that, a hasty search of the 
island to the north and a glance from its 
craggy top, told them that Ninny had not 
gone on up the lake. 

“He bane in dere,” shouted Long Yon, 
pointing to the rocks about the Great Bear, 
and back they drove again to the first 
chaloupe . 


[ 171 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


For the last five minutes her crew had 
been madly attempting to start the key- 
log of the jam, but it held firm, and it 
was out of the question to portage their 
heavy flat-bottom. A little more, how- 
ever, and some of them would have broken 
through the root-ends into the harbor and 
followed Ninny even as he had fled. 

“And little forrader it’d git ye,” wheezed 
their leader, “no, me bhoys, wan boat av 
us goes back for the pike poles. Wid thim 
in our hands, we’ll make our way through 
quick enough, an’ the other boat stays 
here an’ does pathrol duty. Come on, 
now, Bateesto, an’ I’ll draw sticks wid ye 
for which it is.” 

The lot of going back to camp fell to the 
Frenchman. And as his men compelled 
him to take an oar with them, he received 
it with a new explosion of curses. 

“Quick’s the word now,” exhorted Mike, 
“for the night’s failin’ fast an’ the dark’ll 
be on us before we’ve fair got goin’. My- 
[ 172 ] 


MUSEUM AND FORTRESS 


oh-my, but the cunnin’ place he’s chose,” 
and in the half light he shoved off after 
Jombateest and started his craft in her 
first patrolling circuit of the island. 

A look-out could help the Four but little 
now. Bud might come down, and with a 
leaden heart join his fellows on the ground. 


[ 173 ] 


CHAPTER TWELVE 

THE BEGINNING OF THE BATTLE 

ASH-DOWN and Jombateest would 



have been bad citizens anywhere. 


— J The rank and file of the gang were 
“rough-comers,” “ mixed pickles.” Despite 
their treatment of Ninny they were not es- 
sentially cruel, but they could be fright- 
fully cruel — in the first place when besotted 
by drink; in the next, when something had 
brought the nether-nature brute of fury 
uppermost in them, and that was the case 
now. The same discovery that had driven 
all the liquor fuming from their brains had 
rendered them vastly more dangerous than 
they would have been when drunk. 

As for Irish Mike, he was a man meant 
for better things. When he came down to 
Wantebec he was pointed out as one of 
the characters of the bush. He had won 


[ 174 ] 


BEGINNING OF BATTLE 


his leadership partly by hard fighting, 
partly by unruffled good humor, and partly 
by an endless capacity for work — for 
work and for devising mischief. In all 
probability his connection with the spruce- 
cutting business would terminate for all 
time to come before another week had 
passed, but that took never a whit from 
his entire delight in the present. In his 
broadly liberal idea of what constituted a 
good joke, “the bhoys had only been havin’ 
their own little fun wid Ninny,” and he 
intended that they “shud niver work him 
any actial harm.” When he considered 
the liquor they had had, he felt that he was 
controlling them in a manner worthy of 
high praise. But now that that liquor had 
been taken away, and Ninny himself 
was the offender, that any one whoever 
could control the gang, the big Irishman 
might very well have doubted. 

Giving Satan his due, too, it was an open 
question whether Ninny had any right to 
[175] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


break those bottles, but it was a question 
which the Four had little heart to argue 
then. 

Not until now, when the thing had really 
come, and come with such dazing sudden- 
ness, had they had any real comprehension 
of what it was to mean. Not until that 
moment had they known how much, at 
the bottom of their souls, they had been 
counting on boss HallewelFs return, or 
something of the sort to intervene. Every 
few minutes a shout from the patrolling 
chaloupe came raucously in to them. Not 
until then did they* really remember that 
they were boys and only boys. It was 
no matter now of frightening off a crew of 
young Indians with flash lights and red 
fire. What would they not have given 
for the Twenty-footer. 

Yet to their credit, be it said, that their 
first thought was still for the poor exulting 
and capering worker of the mischief. They 
tried to get him to run for it. When that 
[ 176 ] 


BEGINNING OF BATTLE 


patrolling chaloupe had once more reached 
the north end of the island, they hurried 
out with him to the end of Golden Hill, 
and by every manner of gesture and repeti- 
tion they sought to persuade him to drop 
into the water, get across to the lower 
islands, and from there make the mainland 
again. Considering his wonderful swim- 
ming powers, too, he could almost cer- 
tainly have done it. 

They did not succeed in giving him even 
the dimmest understanding of what his 
situation was. At the end of it he showed 
that he believed they had gone out to 
Golden Hill to prepare some such awful 
reception for those spruce men as they had 
given to the party from the Reservation. 
Again and again he caught hold of Tools 
or Booky by the sleeve, and with shoves 
and winks pointed across to Tiger’s Tail — 
that was where they had been before. 
Why weren’t they starting for their waiting- 
place again. 

[177] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 

“It’s no use,” said Jack, “we might as 
well make up our minds to it. He thinks 
now that he’s safe with us if the whole 
North Woods were after him, and they’ll 
be back on us inside an hour. We’d better 
get him up into the keep.” 

The keep, that little rock-head barbican 
which overlooked camp and beach together, 
has been roughly described already, but 
perhaps it may make for clearness to de- 
scribe it again. In front, it rose, broken 
by a single sill or ledge, perhaps a dozen 
feet above the jumbled rocks about its 
foot. Its top was nest-like and naturally 
ramparted, though open and falling away 
behind, and this open rear the Four 
had covered by their barricade, a low 
wall of stone and stumps. Moreover, the 
keep was part of a kind of island of rock, 
separated from the mainland of Port Arthur 
by that wide, irregular fissure which Booky 
had named the moat. You could get into 
the moat from the clump of cedars just 
[ 178 ] 


BEGINNING OF BATTLE 


behind the tent, but so thickly, both 
above and below, was its granite channel 
filled and overhung with berry and hazel 
bushes and young evergreens, that even 
where it was a good twenty feet in width, 
you could probably have found it from 
below only by chance, and from above by 
falling into it. 

Half feeling their way, they climbed the 
ridge leading to the center of the island. 
They made the turn-back, got Ninny across 
the moat by the three small logs which 
formed their drawbridge, pulled the draw- 
bridge after them, and got over their barri- 
cade. 

What need to say, though, that those 
spruce gangers, once they had learned the 
way — and the keep could be scaled from 
its very front — would get into it almost 
as easily as they had themselves. For a 
moment, too, they had thought of taking 
up the Twenty-two with them, but the 
spruce men had a gun of their own — very 
[ 179 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


likely they had it with them — and one 
bad move might lead to worse. Yet, take 
the keep as it was, it was the one place on 
the island where they could put Ninny 
behind them, and do what they could to 
protect him according to the pledge they 
had given. And they intended to protect 
him as long as they could stand up and take 
punishment. 

Ninny himself had again dropped down 
to the beach and the campfire. When he 
saw that there was still no hurry about 
getting out to Tiger’s Tail and Golden Hill, 
he once more, with infinite pride, produced 
those bottle-top trophies of his, and, 
looping an old piece of fishing line to a dead 
branch, he began to knot them into a 
species of triumphal garland. But the 
boys let him alone. The moment would 
come only too quickly when he would flee 
to join them. 

It had come already. The second cha - 
loupe had made the returti trip with a jack- 
[ 180 ] 


BEGINNING OF BATTLE 


light in her bows. She had sped through 
the labyrinth as if in daylight. The glare 
from the flaming pine fat came up to the 
jam. Irish Mike’s men were waiting for 
them upon it. They caught the pike poles 
as fast as they could be flung to them, 
raised an answering yell, and got to work, 
and with the first real levering weight, 
the logs seemed to go of themselves. 

“Ninny!” called Tools, in a half voice, 
“Ninny!” 

“He’ll come all right,” said Jack, “or if 
he doesn’t we’ll go down to him.” 

The first chaloupe began to shoulder its 
way through the harbor mouth. 

For a moment Ninny sat listening, nailed 
in his place. Then and only then did he 
understand. With a leaping spasm of 
terror he rushed to the rear of the keep, 
then came to a halt in a misery of indecision, 
then flung himself back and into the 
tent, as if in search of something. Oh, 
he would join himself to the boys soon 
[ 181 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


enough now. They could keep their eyes 
for those fast-arriving spruce men. 

They saw the first chaloupe bump among 
the rocks of the shore just as they heard 
Ninny pull himself over the barricade be- 
hind them. He seemed to have a faggot- 
like bundle in his arms, and it rattled with 
his fear. 

The second chaloupe thrust itself in 
alongside the first, but until the first 
was empty, the way to land was blocked. 
Jombateest kicked his execrated oar away 
from him. Bending down, he came up 
with a thick, murderous-looking black- 
snake whip. 

At the sight of it — and it came from 
the memory of something that no one had 
yet heard about in Wantebec — there 
broke from Ninny one long, wild, and 
desperate cry — the cry almost of an ani- 
mal, but a cry to stop the heart. 

“Gosh, Jack,” said Booky, “what’ll we 
do? What’ll we do?” 

[ 182 ] 


BEGINNING OF BATTLE 


Jombateest balanced himself on the edge 
of the first chaloupe to make the jump to 
shore, and “V’la!” he cried, “dat’s de 
dev’. Breeng ’im down, mes g argons, 
breeng ’im down.” 

Ninny’s cry had been almost that of an 
animal, but what animal, however timid, 
however naturally harmless, will not fight 
back when brought to bay, in the very 
madness of its terror. There was a sudden, 
snapping whang-g — a z-zz as of a great 
bee, and something seemed to burn by 
Booky’s cheek. It was an arrow from 
Ninny’s bow. The blunt, ashen shaft 
went with a most deadly precision too. 
It caught the fat Jombateest upon his 
puffy, unshaven jaw, and catching him so 
as he still balanced between boat and 
shore, pitched him into four feet of water. 

There was one general yell. 

“YU” 

“Petit bleu!” 

“Nom Tune pipe — !” 

[ 183 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


“An 5 right it sarved him,” roared Irish 
Mike. “I tould ye plain to have no more 
of that blacksnake work, wid me in com- 
mand. Gobs, an’ that was shootin’ too. 
Whee! Ninny, bow and all. I can see 
plain we’re goin’ to have some fun for 
our money.” 

Gulping and spitting water, Jombateest 
clambered to shore; his whip remained 
somewhere at the bottom. With a circling 
sweep the gang took possession of the empty 
camp, and in the keep Ninny was tremu- 
lously thrusting and pushing their own 
bows into the hands of those four “Argue- 
nots.” For their bows and arrows it had 
been that had made the bulk of that faggot- 
like bundle he had brought with him from 
the tent. It was his answer to the ques- 
tion of what they were to do. 

The idea was wild, fantastic, absurd, 
one that could have come only from 
Ninny himself. Yet what help would 
they be to him, if they could only 
[ 184 ] 


BEGINNING OF BATTLE 


use their hands, or stand up there and 
threaten, and Jack began to shove arrows 
up under his sweater without arguing the 
thing further. 

“Oh, I know it’s crazy,” he said. “But 
anyway, it’s something, and we’ll be able 
to feel that we did everything we could.” 

“All righty,” said Bud. “Me, too. 
Chuck me my bunch, and we’d better 
leave the bulk of them here where it’s 
flat.” 

“If they’re going to get him — if they’re 
going to get him, then they’re going to 
fight for it.” Tools and Booky were hys- 
terically clasping hands in the darkness. 

In another half minute, kneeling behind 
that natural rampart of the keep — as if it 
had been a medieval fortress in very truth, 
and manned by the archers of the guard — 
there was not one bowman alone but five. 


[ 185 ] 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 

THE BATTLE CONTINUED 

C ASH-DOWN kicked a log into the 
fire. “ Come on, boys,” he barked. 
“We’ll find the kid bunch later 
on. Come on, and get Ninny down out 
o’ that.” 

Jack stood up, and amid another yell 
let himself be seen. “We give you notice 
now to keep out and let him alone.” 

“What?” ejaculated Irish Mike, “so 
ye’re all in the same nist, too. An’, sonnies, 
I know ye’re game young birds, an’ raison- 
able. I know that when ye hear the mor- 
tal wrong he’s done to us the day — ” 
“Ah, cut it out,” again broke in Cash- 
down; they know mighty beggarin’ well 
the dirt he’s done us.” 

“Yes,” said Jack, “and if it’ll be any 
use, we’re willing to turn in all the coin 
[ 186 ] 


BATTLE CONTINUED 


we’ve got along with us to pay for it. But 
you know mighty well it was what you did 
to him down there with your water cure 
that made him think of it.” 

“That’s all right now, and it ain’t 
that kind o’ pay we’ve come for. Nor we 
didn’t come to put up no arguments, 
neither.” 

“We know you didn’t.” 

“But jest this, though” — and into 
Cash-down’s voice there came something 
that was more evil even than his fury — 
“maybe if you kids are willin’ to act wise 
an’ keep a shut face about any doin’s there’s 
maybe goin’ to be with Ninny up here 
to-night — ” 

The suggestion was all that was needed 
to put the final nerve into their bow-arms. 
“Yes, we’re likely to. We’re likely .” 

“If we’d been that sort we wouldn’t be 
up here at all.” 

“And we give you notice again — ” 

They did not hear. One of the gang 
[ 187 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


had just happened upon Ninny’s garland 
of bottle-heads, and he held it up with 
a kind of yelp. “Boys,” he said, “can 
youse stand for that.” 

“ Sacre bleu /” 

“ Taber nac 7” 

“Larry Gilligan! We’ll make him eat 
them.” 

Waiting for neither word nor leader, 
they charged across the broken, firelit 
stretch between camp and keep and made 
for the point in the rugged, upstanding 
scarp which, even at a distance, showed 
itself to be scaleable. And, let it be said 
again, it was scaleable, as long as you could 
take your time and were not troubled too 
much while you were doing the scaling. 

His own long eldrich screech giving back 
that on-coming yell, Ninny began to shoot 
at once, and he drew to the full stretch 
of thong and hickory. Long Yon got it, 
and Cash-down, and a little fellow called 
Montreal Jack. 

[ 18 B] 


BATTLE CONTINUED 


But the others — with them it was 
good enough logic that if Ninny marked 
two or three of them he could not mark 
them all; and, heads down, arms up as 
shields, and shouting battle, murder, and 
sudden death, they came on in a rush. 
It was then, indeed, that they learned for 
the first time that they had those five bows 
to reckon with. 

It was all but impossible to miss. The 
defenders leaned far over their rampart. 
They shot as rapidly as they could draw 
shaft to head, and their arrows went 
home with the thud, thud, thud of big 
hailstones. Arms and backs, heads and 
shoulders all seemed to get it at once and 
without mercy. The moral effect alone 
was enough to bring about the first as- 
tounded back-surge for cover. Those who 
had not stopped to use their eyes at all 
would have been ready to swear that they 
had to do with fifty or a hundred. 

But some of their fellows at least could 
[ 189 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


reassure them, and now, with a war-cry 
that made their first seem like a mere song 
of love, they rushed forward a second time. 

Again the range became point blank. 
It was almost too cruelly close. Those 
hob-nosed shafts could do no vital injury, 
but they could raise humps like walnuts 
and pigeons’ eggs. Yet the battle was 
none of the boys’ choosing. With Ninny’s 
every cry of hope and fear as he sent his 
arrows home, they were reminded anew of 
what they were fighting for. And it was 
do or die. 

The spruce men were now over the first 
tumble of rocks and were crowding together 
at the base of the keep. Palpably it would 
have been much better for them had they 
been only half as many. But they had 
burningly resolved to finish with it this 
time at any rate, and those behind thrust 
and heaved and hoisted up those before. 

“Up with youse, now.” 

“Sock it to her.” 

[ 190 ] 


BATTLE CONTINUED 


“Montez! Montez toujours!” (Up! Keep 
on up!) 

“We’ll have ’em in a minute.” 

And then, as they, too, got it, “Wow! 
Ah, b’gare! Suffering snakes! Nom (Tune 
pipe!" 

“But keep on goin’,” shouted those 
behind, and somehow or other they did 
keep on. 

The five defenders had only one thought 
— to plant every shaft where it would do 
the most good, and to attack and de- 
fense alike it was achingly apparent that 
every second was bringing the moment 
nearer that was to decide that first battle, 
in any case. And now that moment of 
moments had arrived. 

A big fellow, the “spike” of the howling 
phalanx, a French Canadian whose head 
seemed to be an iron pot and his arms old 
beech-roots, had got a grip on that sill- 
like ledge that bit into the keep not four 
feet below the parapet, and the struggle 
[ 191 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


would be over when that ledge was taken. 
It was dead ground, too, that is, it was so 
far within the defenders’ guard that they 
could not bring their bows to bear on it. 

“Once more, now,” yelled the gang. 
“Once more an’ we — Yah! Cripes! 
Mis ere! Up youse go, though. Up youse 
go, Napoleon.” 

And doubtless Napoleon believed his 
Alps already crossed, but at that moment 
Jack dropped his weapon, seized one of 
Ninny’s longest and heaviest-headed arrows, 
and leaning far out whacked the big Cana- 
jun again and again upon his brawny 
knuckles. He let go with an irrup- 
tion of patois such as it was well few but 
his own people could understand. From 
very torture his feet kicked out as if they 
belonged to some gigantic jumping-jack. 
He came down like a dumped horse and 
cart on those below him, and they in 
their turn brought down the rest. 

The panic that took the assailants then, 
[ 192 ] 


BATTLE CONTINUED 


half of whom had landed on their backs, 
was that instinctive terror we have of being 
hit upon the face. Getting to their feet 
in any way at all, they fell over each other 
in one insensate rush for cover to leeward 
of the tent. 

Irish Mike, well ahead, received his 
sprawling and broken following with shouts 
of hilarious congratulation. 

“There now! There now, me lads!” 
he cried. “Ye’re great fighters — there’s 
nobody to deny it — even if ye did come 
away just when ye had them bate!” 

Cash-down, shaking a bunch of fingers 
as if he desired only to get rid of them, 
swung about and all but sprang on him. 
“Gah-h! It’s dead easy for you to talk!” 

“It is not! I have to re-adjoost me 
lower jaw after ivery worrd av two sylla- 
bles!” 

He turned to some infuriate warriors 
who were groping about in the grass and 
bushes, “An’ ye nade hope to do nawthin’ 
[ 193 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


ag’in them wid rocks, nayther! For, as I 
saw early, there are no rocks!” (In fact, 
all that had been available had long ago 
gone into the barricade.) 

But half the Frenchmen, led by Napo- 
leon, appeared to be hesitating only between 
another attack and internecine war; and 
the latter seemed considerably the more 
attractive. It was a time when diplomacy 
was needed. And at once the big Irishman 
became the diplomat. 

“Bhoys,” he said, (( I apologize. It was 
all my fault. I shud ’a’ been leadin’ ye. 
But ye were too brave an’ ’ager at it ! The 
wan chanst ye give me to show the way 
was when ye started back!” 

“Maybe,” said Jombateest, grinning like 
a wolf, “maybe you got soam plan of your 
own fer do it — no?” 

“Tutt, tutt, tutt, tutt! I’m sorry fer 
ye. An’ I’m sorry fer mesilf! But what 
annybody could av tould us shud have 
been done by siege, or at laste by flankin’ 
[ 194 ] 


BATTLE CONTINUED 


tactics, we tried to do by pure bull-headed- 
ness! Not only that. Here’s a chanst 
put in our hands for a whole night’s enj’y- 
ment an’ we’d be fer squanderin’ it all in 
five minutes fer a little cheap glory!” 
“Hein? Heinl P” 

“Ah, what you gettin’ at?” 

“Listen. Have we fed the night? 
Deuce a snack, even! An’ no doubt 
a-plinty right here under our noses only 
fer liftin’ the tent flap. * Sure! Frish bass, 
an’ half a side of bacon, an’ tay, an’ 
biscuits! Bring it all around here, now, 
an’ we’ll build a second fire, well out o’ 
range. We’ll eat and eat well, after which 
I’ll show ye how a castel shud be took! 
Oh, I warrant ye’ll not be disappointed, 
an’ if ye fear they’ll jump their bail be- 
twane whiles, some of ye go up there on 
the rocks behind and do sentinel; go! You, 
Napoleong, you’ll niver drink tay, I can 
see, till ye’ve drunk revinge; that’ll be a 
houldin’ job fer you!” 

[ 195 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


Napoleon did go up. It was by the 
barest margin, indeed, that he missed the 
moat. And, plainly, the great majority 
of the gang had almost as little mind for 
eating then as had Napoleon. That rock- 
head once taken, there would be a differ- 
ent story to tell. But, for the present, the 
big leader’s queer grip on them held firm. 
The power was still with good nature and 
the Irish. 


[ 196 ] 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 

THE MOAT 


'll ^ROM the keep the boys could follow 
^ the flaring glow of that second fire. 
^ And it was only a matter of minutes 
until, of their whole store of provisions, 
which once had seemed so ample, there 
was left to them only a little flour and 
salt, and a single tin of biscuits, over- 
looked because they had been shoved under 
Booky’s sleeping-bag. 

But it was not of that they thought. 
It was of the matter of ammunition. 
Their stock of arrows had an hour before 
seemed as inexhaustible as their provisions. 
Now they had scarcely a dozen left among 
them. No longer did they lack confidence 
in those Robin Hood weapons. They had 
proven their value once, and they felt that 
they would again. But what value is the 
1197 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


best bow in the world with an empty 
quiver? Of more service to them after all 
would have been the poor old Twenty-two 
itself hanging plugged, with its cartridge 
belt, from the back tent-pole! One chance 
only remained to them. And Bud and 
Booky alone had thought of that. But 
they were to be given little more time even 
for racking anticipations. 

Irish Mike took a last gulp of tea, threw 
the tin cup over his shoulder, and brought 
his big hands down with a smack upon the 
knees of the men on either side of him. 

“Now!” he said, “Come on wid ye! 
Up the hill to Napoleong! There we’ll 
be on the same level wid them. But don’t 
be too hasty, naythor. Circle it wide so 
ye don’t come inty range till we’re all of 
us ready to make our charge thegither!” 

The firelight had been in the eyes of the 
diners for the last hour. Consequently, 
for the first minutes in the darkness, they 
were now almost blind. Nor was that 
[ 198 ] 


THE MOAT 


main ridge of “ Port Arthur ” a climb that 
could be taken on the run at any time. 
To say the least, the gang had little atten- 
tion to give to anything that might be 
taking place behind them. And, in the 
keep, Booky and Bud fell across each other, 
as at the same instant they flung them- 
selves to climb the rampart. Elamingly 
in the heart of both was the same fierce 
intention. 

“No! Let me! I’m going!” 

“ No ! You’re a better shot than I am, and 
if they get me, you’ll be more use up here.” 

In another moment Booky was over and 
upon that sill-like ledge; and before the 
others understood, in a sliding drop he had 
reached the rocks below. 

There was no lack of arrows there. 
Three-quarters of what they had shot 
away lay within a radius of ten yards, and 
with both out-sweeping hands Booky — 
once the timid, the indoors-keeping — 
gathered them in! 

[ 199 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


The others hardly allowed themselves 
to breathe. “ Goo’ boy! Goo’ boy! Goo’ 
boy! Now we’ll have some show again!” 

There was a yell from the last of the 
spruce gang. Their rear guard started on 
a backward rush. But Booky continued 
to throw those all-precious “ blunt-heads ” 
back into the keep in sheaves. Not till 
Long Yon had rounded the tent behind 
him did he clutch the ends of the bows 
which Bud and Jack had let far down and 
pull himself back into safety. “It’s all 
right, fellows,” he said. “And I guess, 
Ninny, they’re not going to get you for a 
little while yet!” 

Irish Mike had beheld the maneuver 
with admiration undisguised. “Well, now, 
Old Nickie take them!” he exclaimed. 
“An’, lads, between fightin’ pluck an’ 
cliverness, ye’ll not deny they’re goin’ far 
towards earnin’ a free pardon.” 

That was as might be. It was darkly 
significant that the suggestion seemed to 
[ 200 ] 



Back into safety, page 200 










































THE MOAT 


go entirely unsupported. Under the dim 
and redly rising moon the gang gathered 
themselves together among the hazels for 
their rush. 

“Now, bhoys, as ye can see, the young 
cocks have built some spacies av brist- 
work. But it’s not more than vaultin’ 
high. Ye can go over it leppin’, an’ one 
hand free. They’ll sure wing some av 
us. But the faster we’re travelin’ the 
fewer ’twill be. Sprid out now! Are ye 
all riddy? Thin up an’ on!” 

With a whoop that was both of vengeance 
and victory — for already they saw them- 
selves inside the wall — they dropped their 
heads and launched themselves. 

Those who have read Victor Hugo’s 
description of the battle of Waterloo will 
remember that, according to the famous 
novelist, it was the trench of Mont St. 
Jean, lying all unsuspected across the front 
of the French cavalry, that led to a great 
army’s undoing. And now, in the case 
[201 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


of that spruce gang, such a trench — 
though it was of old nature’s making — 
was to prove the moat. From end to end 
those clustering bushes masked it with 
the deadly effectiveness of the most finished 
military art. 

“ Yeow ! Larry Gilli — Misere ! ” 

Barely had the gang developed a full 
charging pace than those in front suddenly 
found themselves treading on nothing at 
all! And next moment they were landing 
six feet down in the tangle of old berry 
canes on the bottom. 

“Ah, bagosh! Murderin’ Isaacs! Ho, 
I’m keel’d!” 

And then the voice of affliction was 
plainly that of Irish Mike himself. “ Gobs, 
will a few more av ye jump on me ! There’s 
still a part av me back untaken!” 

Such of the gang as had been able to 
stop in time ran deliriously up and down 
the edge of the moat looking for a place 
where it could be leaped. And, had they 
[ 202 ] 


THE MOAT 


kept on far enough to the left, they would 
have found it. But the densely growing 
hazels and young spruces hid that, as 
they had the moat itself. The blink- 
ing moon seemed only to reveal on every 
hand still more horrid chasms. And once 
more Ninny had remorselessly begun to 
shoot. 

Those now painfully finding their feet 
at the bottom of the moat were, from their 
position at least, well under cover. But 
after the manner of furious men they showed 
no wise intention of profiting thereby. 
Once on their feet, their hands told them 
that the inner face of the rock could be 
climbed in half a dozen places. Malign- 
ing all such as stayed behind and above 
for cowards and slinkers, they rushed 
blindly to the escalade. In their turn the 
men above began to drop down, can- 
kered now from new wounds of body 
and spirit both. From the whole central 
stretch of the moat went up their yell and 
[ 203 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


slogan ; and again the assault was under full 
and raging headway. 

But, once more, the range was point- 
blank. This time, too, if the assailants 
were to win the level, they must present 
their unkempt mops all unprotected to the 
slaughter, and, no sooner had head after 
head shoved into view, than it was as if the 
whole inner brink of the moat turned itself 
into one continuous black hornet’s nest. 

In the keep the Four felt themselves 
become mere automatons, with a single 
purpose — to get their arrows to the bow- 
notch faster, and faster, and faster, and yet 
make every arrow tell. Their eyes were 
fixed; their throats were dry. The very 
intensity of the excitement had become a 
kind of strange absence of it. Ninny 
himself was strangely silent now. His 
dog-like eyes still kept their wordless de- 
pendence on the boys — wordless depend- 
ence and a gratitude that was wholly 
measureless. But there was more than 
[ 204 ] 


THE MOAT 


that. One would have said that something 
had changed in him. 

So far the attackers, with all capacity 
for thought jarred out of them by the moat, 
were simply repeating their first mistake 
of not acting together. As soon as they 
should get it into their heads that half of 
them must simultaneously devote their 
fevered energies to pitching the other half 
up and out, then — two leaps for the 
barricade and everything would be over. 
As it was, they were all of them suffering 
in turn for no good. It was the boldest, 
too, who suffered most. Those who put 
only a hand into that black hornet’s nest, 
and then dropped back to hug it to them 
or, like Cash-down, try to shake it 
off, could take it out in language. But 
when Napoleon and Long Yon and Irish 
Mike himself succeeded in getting them- 
selves fairly to their knees upon the edge, 
for endless moment after endless moment 
endured the red-hot rush and punishment 
[20 5 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


of those living stings, yet at the end had to 
give up and fall back again — what shall be 
said for them? Man after man roaringly 
turned himself into a target for five sec- 
onds, for eight, for ten! But no mortal 
spruce ganger could endure it for fifteen! 
It remained to be seen how much longer 
it would be till they learned from their 
sufferings. But at the most it could now 
be only a matter of minutes. 

Meanwhile some of those bruised and 
baffled bulls of Bashan were smashing 
their way along the moat to find its outlet. 
It was in this way, in fact, that they dis- 
covered that its campward end opened in 
the cedars hard by the tent. But what 
profit was that to them? They could only 
charge impotently back again. It could 
not help them. But it was to be the 
means of bringing the attack to the most 
calamitous and unlooked-for of denoue- 
ments . 

There is perhaps but one thing that 

[ 206 ] 


THE MOAT 


hurts more than being hit with an arrow 
on the ear. That is being hit on the same 
ear with a second arrow. And a moment 
before he broke his way out into camp and 
tent, this had been the fortune of Jomba- 
teest. With a yell of fury he ran to the 
tent and came back with the Twenty-two 
and the belt of shells. And, spitting patois , 
he thrust in a cartridge as he came. 

“Ye will not,” cried Irish Mike. “Ye 
will not! Clinch him boys, an’ git him 
down!” 

But, leveling it straight at the figures 
in the keep, Jombateest foamingly pulled 
the trigger. 

When a charge of powder cannot go for- 
ward, it is going to go back, and if there 
is anything movable in its way, that is 
going to go along with it. In the present 
case part of the mechanism of the breach 
was movable. And together shell, bullet, 
and breach-block blew straight back across 
Jombateest’s greasy cheek. The gun 
[ 207 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


dropped clinking on the rocks, both his 
hands went to his head, and, “ Aie, mon 
dieu, I am daid!” he cried; “I am daid!” 

Irish Mike pulled him around and made 
a swift and ruthless examination. 

“Ah-h, no such desert! ’Tis only your 
ear ag’in. An’ ye’ve still got a good part 
av it left!” 

But what followed showed clearly the 
weakness of divided commands. Fully per- 
suaded that if he was not already dead 
only salve and bandages could keep him 
from bleeding to death, Jombateest rushed 
for the chaloupes. And in a minute every 
“Canajun” was backing him. Jombateest 
leaped into one of the boats. Long Yon 
and Cash-down, seeing in a moment that 
the number of those Frenchmen must com- 
pel the whole party to go or stay together, 
seized the craft by the bows. Jomba- 
teest tore an oar loose and swung it high. 
And his fellows flew to jerk out others. 

The situation called for instant decision 

[ 208 ] 


THE MOAT 


and generalship. And, on the instant, 
Irish Mike projected himself forward and 
into it. 

“Now, now, now, now! If ye’re goin’ 
to take it like that!” The choice was 
between a temporary retreat and mutual 
destruction, and he chose at once. 
“Bhoys,” he entreated, “it comes suddin’, 
an’ it comes heart-breakin’, but I see 
the way it is.” 

Bellows of bloodthirsty refusal stopped 
him. 

“I tell ye there’s nawthin’ ilse for it! 
I’m not wantin’ to go no more nor you are. 
An’ we’ll come back ag’in! Oh, be sure 
we will! Come on, now, come on!” 

“An’ leave them to pike it in the mean- 
time?” 

“Now will they pike it? Ye can note 
yersilves their boat is gone, an’ it’s a true 
tale Xavier was tellin’ about seein’ the 
young Injins wid it! We take no chances 
whativer when we lave thim be a few hours 
[ 209 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


more. Sure an’ it’ll be nigh the mornin’ 
when we git back home, the way it is! 
Come on now, come on! Will ye have 
Jombateest a corp on our hands? Have 
some fellow-feelin’, now!” 

It was something that arguing could not 
do at once. But in the end it did it. 
From the keep the defenders saw the in- 
credible accomplished. Half pulling, half 
pushing them, Irish Mike got even the 
most rabid of his company on board at 
last. And carrying all their bruises with 
them, once more they headed out for the 
shanties ! 


[ 210 ] 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

AGAIN AT BAY 

W E’VE got to run for it!” said 
Jack. “If they’d only stopped 
to think, they could have 
bridged the moat, or cut bushes for head 
shields, or — oh, there’s twenty things they 
could have done!” 

“That’s right! And you can be most 
mighty sure they’ll be thinking of them 
now!” 

They had believed that they would never 
be able to sleep at all, and a half hour after 
the spruce gang had departed dawn had 
begun to break. But, once more, from 
pure body weariness, they had slept almost 
until noon. They had, however, awakened 
to no self-delusions. Blind chance had given 
them the victory for the present hour, but 
[ 211 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


there could be no faintest doubt of the 
way it would go in a final issue. 

“We’ve got to run for it,” said Jack 
again. “It’s hard lines after standing 
them off twice over. But we know what’s 
saving up for* us if we stay. We’ll make 
some sort of raft, and cross over to the 
main shore and hit the old voyageur trail 
for the Reservation Village.” 

Granted, that might land them in the 
hands of the Reservation enemy. But 
anything would be safer now than waiting 
there on the island. They would cache 
the things from the Great Bear, and they 
would get back for them some time or 
other! They would take with them only 
what they absolutely had to take. If they 
pushed straight inland from that western 
shore, they would strike the trail somewhere. 
Even if only one of them made it, he could 
appeal to Chief Johnny White Horse or 
some other old head man in the village, 
and he would see them through. They 
[ 212 ] 


AGAIN AT BAY 


had money enough to buy a few supplies. 
They would enter the hottest kind of com- 
plaint about the theft of the Twenty -footer. 
And then they would hit the trail again 
and tramp the hundred miles back to 
Wantebec! 

Ninny had, for the moment, disappeared 
again. But after his last experience no 
one could fear that he had gone far this 
time. Hurrying through a breakfast-lunch 
of pilot biscuit they set to with all speed 
to make their raft. 

There were almost no small logs that 
could be of service. And the big ones 
could not be used in the shape they were. 
They had to chop them into lengths with 
their one small hand-axe and then lower 
them down to the water. Then, too, if 
they were going to take their sleeping-bags, 
the raft must be given some kind of floor. 
And this called for a lot more of the hardest 
splitting and wedging work. Even with 
that, their labor would have gone for naught 
[ 213 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


had they not been able once more to draw 
upon old Job’s inestimable “six-inchers.” 

They felt reasonably safe in calculating 
that the spruce gang would sleep at least 
as long as they had. Nor was it likely 
that they would feel like rushing to their 
chaloupes immediately, even when they did 
wake up again. But, from three o’clock 
on, a watch was maintained in the crow’s- 
nest uninterruptedly. 

A half hour of flying axe and jack-knife 
manipulation gave them five primitive but 
serviceable paddles — five — but Ninny was 
still to come back to claim his own. 

“Oh, that’s all right, now,” said Bud, 
letting himself down for the last time from 
the mighty pine; “you’ll see he’ll be back 
now any time. For one thing he hasn’t 
had anything to eat to-d^y.” 

“Sure,” said Jack; “he’ll be back by 
the time we really need him. And we’ve 
got to get our Great Bear stuff safely 
planted yet.” 

[ 214 ] 





They cached those 'priceless mound relics in that jungle of cedars, page 215 













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AGAIN AT BAY 


They cached those priceless mound relics 
in that jungle of cedars by the secret pas- 
sage, and covered them with such a top- 
dressing of leaves and cedar droppings as 
they could feel would have baffled a Sher- 
lock Holmes. Then, saying good-by to 
the tent — for it was out of the question 
to pack it on their backs for the ten days 
“hike” that was ahead of them — they 
swiftly sorted over their stuff, rolled what 
they were going to take into their sleeping- 
bags, and loaded up. It was after four, 
and late enough. They were ready now. 
But Ninny had still to show himself. 

And only then, when the race and tension 
of preparing for their flight was over, did 
they realize what the strain would be to 
stand there for even two minutes longer 
and wait for him. For now seconds were 
worth minutes, and minutes hours! 

Yet there remained another thing that 
they could do, and feel that they were 
saving time. They could get the raft 
[ 215 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


around to the sally port, from which there 
was an almost straightaway course to 
the western shore. That would be a few 
minutes made good use of anyway. 

They took the raft around, anchored her 
under the port, pulled themselves up the 
bank, and once more went back to camp. 
He couldn’t stay away much longer, now! 
He couldn’t! He simply couldn’t be crazy 
enough! But — still there was no Ninny! 

Five o’clock came, and six. Waiting had 
now become a torture. The sun slowly 
lost itself below the horizon of the islands 
and again there was only the afterglow. 
Another hour, and even if they did make 
the mainland that night, it would be too 
dark to steer their way through the bush 
and find the trail. Yet to stay where they 
were — ! And still no Ninny! 

At first they did not wholly grasp the 
decision that they had to come to. There 
could be little doubt now that the spruce 
gang were for their part only waiting for 
[ 216 ] 


AGAIN AT BAY 


the darkness again. Nor would they have 
long to wait; a bank of heavy cloud was 
rising from the fallen sun. Bud had 
mounted to the crow’s-nest. With every 
rustling leaf their hearts leaped up with 
the thought that the stray-away had at 
last been sighted — or fell unhopingly to 
catch their knell of warning. And did 
they but know it, in that hour they had 
entered upon the real test of their expedi- 
tion — one of those tests which forever 
after give character a new standard to 
brace to conqueringly, or leave it with a 
sense of instamped meanness which, as 
long as memory lasts, can never be escaped 
from. 

As always, too, all the arguments were 
on the other side: Hadn’t they done every- 
thing in mortal power towards taking care 
of Ninny, as it was? Hadn’t it been up 
to him at least to stay around? And how 
could you explain his keeping away like 
this for so long now, if this time he hadn’t 
[ 217 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


gone for good? Ten to one, if they stayed 
there and were half murdered, Ninny’d 
never so much as hear of it! 

Bud called, swung out and down from 
the 44 grand-daddy,” wig- wagging as he 
came. 

44 Is it him? Is it him?” 

44 No,” he answered, like tragedy. 44 It’s 
the chaloupes, both of them.” 

Yet even now they could probably make 
the mainland safely. 

44 Oh, say!” said Booky, 44 this is fierce!” 

44 It’s the limit, all right!” said Tools. 

“Fellows,” said Jack — and his voice 
was a little husky — 44 1 know we all feel 
just the same about it. But supposing we 
heard afterwards that he’d come back 
here just a few minutes after we’d gone and 
walked right into the gang, and they — 
they — ” 

“That’s right.” 

“And it seemed to me somehow, last 
night, that if they’d caught one of us, and 
[ 218 ] 


AGAIN AT BAY 


it’d been up to him to go through just any- 
thing at all to rescue us, that he’d just 
have given his life so quick — !” 

“I — I guess that’s what.” 

“I sort of — sort of felt that way about 
him, too.” 

“That’s right! And, gosh, we won’t go, 
neither — not for anything on earth ! ” 

“Oh, I’ve no doubt he’s up to some poor 
silly -fool nonsense again. But we can’t let 
that make any diff. We’ve got to stand 
by him. That’s what we’re here for.” 

“And we’ve got our bows and arrows 
yet.” 

“It’s going to be a lot darker, too, to- 
night.” 

“Tools,” said Jack, “you go up there 
again, and keep on the look-out till the last 
possible second. Even if he only turns up 
in time for us to shove the raft off from up 
at the port there, while they’re coming in 
down here, it’s black enough to maybe 
dodge them, even then!” 

[ 219 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


“And if they do get here ahead of 
him—” 

“Then he’ll just find us, dead or alive, 
waiting in the keep for him again!” 


[ 220 ] 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 

THE TWENTY-FOOTER 


T would have been so much easier if 
they could only have been doing 
something in the meantime. But now 
there seemed to be nothing that they could 
do. Yet 4 ‘they also serve who only stand 
and wait;” and they got their fire going 
again, and stood under the “grand-daddy,” 
and waited. They might not be able to 
see Tools up there. But the night was so 
still that, as he lay flattened out on the 
“saddle-branch,” everything came down 
to them with the eerie distinctness of a 
stage whisper. 

“They’re making time, all right. And 
they seem to be steering away from each 
other. . . . No, no, they’re not. They’re 
back again now right side by side.” 

Then there was a longer silence. 

[221 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


“Are they together yet?” 

“Yes, and they — But, say! Say!" — 
And now there was a new note, a note of 
the startled, of the dumbfounded, in the 
voice of Tools, “there’s something else 
moving, — from the west shore ! ” 

“It isn’t Ninny?” 

“No — oh, no, it isn’t him ! And, there’s 
three or four! — Fellows /” He made as if 
to come down the tree, then stayed 
where he was, half choking. “It’s — it’s 
those beggars from the Reservation, again! 
And they’re making north, — to drop on 
us from up above!” 

It was plain, then, that the Chippewa 
mind had had time to have some second 
thoughts on the subject of red fire and bear- 
heads ! 

Tools sat there as if transfixed. “And I 
can see another now. It’s cutting straight 
across among the islands further down.” 

As has been said, one could make one’s 
way into Port Arthur by way of the sally - 

[m] 


THE TWENTY-FOOTER 


port. Had not the Four just accomplished 
it themselves? But it was practically a 
matter of hauling one’s self up, hand and 
foot, over the spikes of a stump fence, — 
something which the spruce men never had 
any thought of doing. 

But to those young Indians it would be 
a feat of little difficulty. Also, they must 
have got to know the port quite well when 
they were making away with the Twenty- 
footer. To crown it all, — and the thought 
was a sickening one, — they would now 
have the advantage of the use of the raft. 

“Tools,” Jack called quietly, “Toolsy, 
old man, you might as well come down now. 
We’ll have to get back there first, and get 
our packs up. We can stow them some- 
where. And then there’s nothing else for 
us to do but to trust to our bows again.” 

They groped their way as best they could 
along the shelving rim of the bowl and made 
the port. Tools and Jack lowered them- 
selves to the raft. And the two above took 
[ 223 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


the packs as they lifted them. It did not 
seem to matter a great deal where they put 
them. They had no time really to hide 
them. But there was that heavy growth 
of cedars extending on both sides of the 
secret passage. And they shoved them 
under them, not far from where they had 
cached the things from the Great Bear. 

And they had begun once more to feel 
their way back to the keep, when, from the 
twistings of the labyrinth on the west, 
they caught a sound. Unbreathingly they 
stood to listen. 

It was not a sound of paddles: the 
Reservationers could mufHe them well 
enough! It was a dry, harsh rip-p, rip-p. 
It came at regular intervals, and it could 
come only from rushes going down before 
a swiftly thrusting cut-water. In the night 
it is a sound which carries weirdly far. 

“It’s — it’s that one that was coming 
straight over,” said Tools. He could hardly 
speak. 


[ 224 ] 


THE TWENTY-FOOTER 


“And it’s — it’s making right for the 
passage!” 

“You’d say they’d been watching us 
plant our things there from the beginning ! ” 

“All right!” said Jack, “then I know 
what I’m going to do, — and there’s time for 
it, too, before the others catch us. If the 
sneaking beasts know about the passage, 
they know they’ve got to use a rope or 
something to get them up to the grape-vines. 
I’m going to be waiting there. And I’m 
going to give them the sort of welcome 
they’re richly suffering for!” 

“Me, too!” said Tools. “If they’ve been 
watching us as close as that, they’ll find 
they’ve just been sharp enough to give 
themselves the edge.” 

Jack turned to reassure the other two. 
“Oh, we won’t stay a jiffy longer than is 
safe.” 

Bud and Booky stood a moment. Then 
they, too, fiercely hardened to it. Grasp- 
ing their bows, they started for the keep. 

[ 225 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


Jack, on hands and knees, was already 
out of sight behind the screen of fox-grapes. 
And he hooked himself along a twisting, 
ropy stem as thick almost as his arm, till 
he was hanging above the water. Tools 
followed and got in as close beside him as 
he could, and yet leave room enough to 
use his weapon. Again came that dry 
rip-p, rip-p. 

Because Tools knew that this party, at 
any rate, must have seen the chaloupes , he 
was almost ready to believe that both 
forces were working in unison. And what 
he had no doubt of whatsoever was that 
both these divisions from the Reservation 
shore had timed their movements and 
made all plans for a simultaneous surprise. 
“Well, we’ve made a few of our own!” he 
said intensely. i 

Again that brushing rip-p, rip-p\ It came 
now from the last rush bed, — one which 
flanked the channel directly across from 
the passage. Yet now, too, the boys had 
[ 226 ] 


THE TWENTY-FOOTER 


begun to get the accompanying sound ; and 
it did not seem to be the nervous double- 
quick of paddles at all! And then, from 
the midst of it, came the ka-ronk! ka-ronk! 
of a kingfisher, — alike an imitation and a 
call. 

It was Ninny! 

And in ten seconds more their eyes were 
telling them the rest: It was Ninny with 
the Twenty-footer! 


[ 227 ] 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 

OUT OF THE LABYRINTH 

]T ACK thrust down a big grape-vine 
branch. And Ninny whipped the 
]) painter about it. 

Tools waited only to get breath. Then, 
stumbling and tripping in his haste, he 
fled back through the pitchy central dark- 
ness of the island for the keep. He could 
hear the chaloupes entering the bottle-neck 
as he ran! 

“Fellows! Fellows! Come it! Come 
it, quick! I’ll tell you on the way.” 
Again he could not get the words. “It’s 
the Twenty -footer! And Ninny, too!” 

Nor was there need of his saying more. 
Booky and Bud came over the barricade 
and dropped down to soft-bottom in the 
moat like cats. But, as they took the 
camp-fire at a leap’ they were seen from 
the first chaloupe. 

[ 228 ] 


OUT OF THE LABYRINTH 


“ VTa /” 

“ Cripes ! ” 

“No doubt they got a place to lay for us 
now somewheres in behind!” 

But the bushy blackness of the under- 
woods had again engulfed the boys, and 
a minute more and they had reached the 
passage. 

Jack, in a tremor of haste, was just 
lowering Ninny the last of the packs. 
“Don’t you see? Jinks, don’t you see?” 
he exulted, answering their question before 
they could ask it. “They’ll all be away 
from the shanties now. And once we 
get clear without their seeing us, we can 
make our portage there as safe as — as 
— Booky, that Great Bear stuff — where 
was it you planted it? We’re going to 
get away with every mortal thing except 
the tent, and be twenty miles down river 
by morning.” 

And then the two newcomers had to 
take hold of themselves again. 

[ 229 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


“Gosh! But do you think we’ve got 
the time for it?” 

“They’re under here — no, here — fur- 
ther up! ” 

In Booky’s throat was an up-welling, 
unutterable delight. He flung the top- 
ping of leaves aside, and the earth dis- 
appeared beneath his hands. “And on 
that side, too, Buddy. They’re all to- 
gether, you know, and the little things 
inside the pots. Here’s the big, skull 
one! You’ll have to help me out with it.” 

Tools swiftly got himself down into the 
boat to pack away. As fast as they could 
be handed to him, each earthy treasure 
was safely cushioned in a nest of its own 
among the blankets. And Booky silently 
kept tab. 

“ What's that ? What's that ? ” 

It was a light bumping sound from the 
sally-port. 

“It’s the canoes, all hunky, this time! 
Will we put for it?” 


OUT OF THE LABYRINTH 


But there were still two of the pots to 
find. 

“And we’re all right here, too,” said 
Jack. “We’re going to see the job through 
now.” 

“That’s what!” ‘ 

But it seemed as if they were never to 
find those last two pots. They would have 
abandoned the search in the end, only that 
their visitors, too, appeared to be giving 
themselves all the time there was. . . . 
Or, had it really been those Reservationers 
that they had heard at the sally-port? If 
it had been, then one might have believed 
they had stopped on the raft to complete 
their plans by the lengthiest of pow-wows 
in sign language. 

Yet the spruce gangers, — they were no 
less quiet! They had seen the boys, too, 
and learned that they were no longer in the 
keep. And granting that they also might 
have preparations of their own to make, 
they were not young Indians. How could 
[ 231 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


they maintain that absolute, that now 

almost unearthly silence? But was 

that silence? Was it? 

If it was, — if it was, then it was the kind 
of silence that you can hear creeping ! And 
at the same moment four “Argue-nots” 
felt themselves grow rigid. From the sally- 
port end of the bowl a pebble had rattled 
down, — then another. And they were 
followed, an instant later, by the crackling 
snap of a dead raspberry-cane on the road 
from camp! 

Briefly, and not to dwell upon the agony, 
what was taking place was this: Far from 
acting together, — which on the very face 
of it had been improbable enough, — both 
spruce gangers and Reservationers were 
acting in the most complete ignorance of 
each others’ movements. But chance — 
betrayer of men ! — had brought them there 
on the same night, and put into their 
equally nefarious hearts practically the 
same idea. For, while those Reserva- 
[ 232 ] 


OUT OF THE LABYRINTH 


tioners were coming with all stealth to 
surprise the camp from the direction of the 
sally-port, those spruce men had spread 
themselves out, and with the same serpent- 
like stealth were seeking to locate that 
new ambush “in behind.” And it was a 
moral certainty that some of those creeping 
skirmishers would inevitably meet. 

Inevitably? They were meeting now! 
“Wah!” 

“ Yi ! ” Immediately like cause and effect, 
there followed the sound of a blow; a blow, 
too, as immediately returned. 

“Gobs! Hit me! — me that would V 
pretected ye ! ” Once more it was the 
voice of Irish Mike. “Then that fer ye, 
too — an’ that ! Ta-ra-ra, come on, bhoys ! 
We got thim now!” 

That first collision had apparently taken 
place on the very rim of the bowl. For 
in another moment both combatants could 
be heard to slip, and then roll, kicking and 
hammering, to the bottom! 

[ 233 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


Nothing more was called for. Wasting 
no breath on war-cries, both forces rose to 
their feet in the darkness, and rushed 
headlong for the encounter. 

Some of them joined the first two in the 
bowl before they could strike a blow. But 
no matter for that. All alike had set their 
teeth with the selfsame vow, to finish with 
it in a single onslaught! 

“Ugh!” And a blow. 

“Wow!” And another blow. 

“ Blau! Ay bane Swedish man ! ” 

“ Poignez , mes enfants , poignez /” (Give 
it to them, boys, give it to them!) 

“An’ down you go, too! Bite, would 
youse — an’ gouge? ” 

“La-ga-dig-a — ” 

“Wah-h! Wah-h!” 

“Scutt!! It sounds like they’d got help 
from the Reservation.” 

“Then it’s goin’ to be bad for the Reser- 
vation. We’ll trim the whole boilin’ of 
them together.” 


[ 234 ] 


OUT OF THE LABYRINTH 


“Chippewa boy heap friend!” 

“Yiss! Me eye feels like it! I’m a hape 
frind, too, — an’ the top av the hape. 
Come on, bhoys, come on!” 

And, as with every moment the combat 
waxed, still more fell, four “Argue-nots” 
clung together by the secret passage and 
hugged each other speechlessly. 

“Say! Say!” 

“I guess this squares for everything!” 

“Say, if we’d spent a month trying to 
fix it for them!” 

“Gosh, I could stay here and listen to 
them for a year!” 

But the last two pots had been found, 
and it was palpably taking a chance to stay 
an instant longer. Bud and Jack began 
to let themselves down into the Twenty- 
footer. “Chase it, now, fellows, we’ll have 
to put!” 

It was palpably taking a chance. But 
Tools and Booky took it. They had their 
bows in their hands. By this time the 
[23 5 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


position of the combatants — locked in- 
extricably together at the bottom of the 
bowl in one great threshing clump — could 
be made out by the ear almost with the 
accuracy of vision. It was low-down; 
it was cruel, vindictive — piling Pelion on 
Ossa! But it was a temptation not to 
be resisted. And unlimbering their ashen 
battery, Booky and Tools sent in a series 
of repeated and Parthian good-bys! 

“Ugh!” 

“Larry Gilligan!” 

“Yiss! Oh-h yiss! I was on’y waitin’ 
fer that! An’ pretind, ye redskin, — pre- 
tind ye’re not all colleagued thegither 
now!” 

But Jack had Booky by the ankle, and 
was hauling him into the boat by main 
force. And in ten seconds more they had 
cast off. 

A dozen strokes brought them abreast of 
Golden Hill. They passed the bottle-neck 
and Tiger’s Tail. Dimly above them they 
[ 236 ] 


OUT OF THE LABYRINTH 


could make out the old “ grand-daddy of 
pines” and the crow’s-nest. And high 
and dire the noise of conflict still surged 
out to them. Whipping on, they plunged 
into the labyrinth. Instinct alone seemed 
to take them through. And, as if further 
to guide them, the moon had begun to 
come out from behind those thickly bank- 
ing clouds. Clear of the last rush bed and 
overhanging cedar, they were in the lake 
again. Then, pulling with that uplifting 
strength that can be given only by victory, 
they steered their course straight for the 
boom and shanties. 

It was only, in fact, after they had 
let themselves go for the first rip-rush- 
ing mile or more, that they would lie 
back for a moment and give the intoxica- 
tion of their spirits a still more satisfying 
vent: 

“ We’ve got to let them have it, you 
know.” 

“Have what? — Oh! Oh, sure!” 

[ 237 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


“Well, rather! Those arrows were only- 
half a good-by.” 

And then: “One! Two!” 

“ Camp — Cots! 

Tent ! — Pots! 

Grub? — Lots! 

We’re the ancient order 
Of the Argu e-nots!” 

“Oh! I guess they could pretty near 
hear that, maybe!” 

“They’ll have more than the moon to 
put them right about things now.” 

They gave it again when they began to 
pass the lower Reservation shore. And 
again, when another ten minutes of pull- 
ing had brought them in sight of the boom 
at last and the portaging place in front of 
the shanties, and Jack had jumped from 
the bow to the rough mud-and-log landing, 
in pure, uncontrollable exhilaration they 
gave it a third time : 

“ Camp — Cots! 

Tent! — Pots! 

[ 238 ] 


OUT OF THE LABYRINTH 


Grub? — Lots! 

We’re the — ” 

The proverb which counsels us not to 
“holler” till we’re entirely out of the woods 
should undoubtedly be extended to small 
bodies of fresh water. The last line died 
in their larynxes. For, from the door of 
the nearest shanty, half-dressed, his head 
swathed in towels, a boundless, virulent 
amazement in his every gesture, and in 
his hands the shanty duck-gun, tumbled 
Jombateest! 


[ 239 ] 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 

THE BOOM ONCE MORE 


OMBATEEST it was. And if that 
fat and bellowing cook had that 
JJ night remained behind as an invalid, 
it was overwhelmingly evident that he had 
no intention of playing the part of an in- 
valid now. Jack could only leap aboard 
again. And the others, yawing the Twenty- 
footer to the right-about, could do no more 
than get her back and out of the inlet with 
what speed they could. 

There had been other painful situations 
in those last three days which had seemed 
to develop suddenly. But this! 

It was impossible, now, to go back to 
Port Arthur. It was no less impossible 
to follow out their plan of making for the 
Reservation. For, from up the lake already 
[ 240 ] 


THE BOOM ONCE MORE 


there came to them — distant as yet, but 
all too clear — the roar of awakened and 
bursting pursuit. 

In the sheer necessity of action, not in 
any belief that action could be of use to 
them, they had kept on along the boom. 
But once out of range of that double-barrel, 
they let their oars drop in complete aban- 
donment. 

“No! No! Further!” 

It was Ninny who spoke. They were 
the first words, indeed, that he had uttered 
since he had found and brought them 
back the Twenty-footer. And the Four felt 
their hearts start in them as they heard. 
For it was truly as if it was a new Ninny 
that then found voice! But there was no 
time to think of such things now. 

“No! No! Further!” Ninny hoarsely 
said again. He was like a man who is be- 
wildered by himself. A flood of old river 
knowledge had come whirling back to him, 
he knew not whence. But, grasping the 
[ 241 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


side of the boat, he still pointed on toward 
midstream. 

And, without reasoning themselves, and 
under a sort of hypnotic compulsion, they 
spread their oars and headed on again. 

A second gesture from Ninny could not be 
misread. Heaving to, they let the Twenty- 
footer go with the current to the boom. 
And, as another spruce-gang yell came 
down to them, Ninny jumped like a rafts- 
man to that slippery, half -flattened log 
beside them, and ran along it to the 
sixteen-inch chain which bound it to the 
next. There he turned, grasped the staple, 
and let himself straight down into the river ! 

He let himself down till only his head 
was above water. But immediately, with 
a shake of disappointment, he drew him- 
self as strongly up and to the boom again. 
Running the length of the log ahead, he 
caught the next connecting chain: a second 
time he dropped into the current till he 
all but disappeared! Staring and dumb, 
[ 242 ] 


THE BOOM ONCE MORE 


the boys poled the Twenty -footer after 
him. ... 

Again Ninny had obviously failed to 
find what he was seeking. It seemed no 
less obvious, too, that he was trying for 
the bottom. But what did that explain? 

Yet he was already trying for it again — 
this time three logs further down. And 
there, where the river should have been its 
deepest, it showed itself to be little above 
his waist. He was standing on a mid- 
channel shoal of boulders. 

And once more, too, before the boys 
could get any first conception of what his 
idea was, he had gone under. But now, 
when he came up, it was with a “hard- 
head” as big as a firkin. And heaving it 
shoulder high, he slid it ponderously to that 
flat-topped boom! Waiting only to get 
it balanced, his great body dropped down 
again in groping search for a second. 

And, on the instant, despite all wisdom, 
the Four broke into a shout themselves. 

[ 243 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


There was no need of any explanation now! 
Half a dozen such boulders would sink 
those two boom-logs beside them till their 
ends were under water, and the connect- 
ing chain would no longer catch even 
the Twenty-footer’s keel. She would go 
through like the threading of a needle! 

She would make her passage so, if the 
pursuers gave her time for it. But, now, 
high up the wavering moon-path, the boys 
could see the first chaloupe. Almost at the 
same minute, too, her crew made out their 
position by the boom. And, with a yell, 
both chaloupes lifted themselves together, 
and came on anew at a pace to tear out 
rowlocks and crack the thwarts. Ninny 
had now got his fourth rock up. 

“Can’t I — can’t I get into it, too?” 
breathed Jack, in torture. 

“Or me?” 

“Or me?” 

Ninny only spurted water thickly, and 
shook his streaming, shaggy head, and went 
[ 244 ] 


THE BOOM ONCE MORE 


down again. And, in point of fact, not one 
among the Four but would have had to 
struggle merely to keep his feet against 
that thrusting, dragging current, let alone 
to bring up any boulders that could have 
been of use. Ninny heaved his fifth up, 
and his sixth. 

They got the Twenty-footer around, 
and sent her, nose on, at the opening. 
But that deep sailing keel of hers still 
caught. They could only hold her pointed 
so, and wait. Had those Reservationer 
canoes taken part in the pursuit, the thing 
would already have been settled. 

Jombateest, who had been rolling his 
fat body about in a paroxysm of triumph 
on the landing, now seemed suddenly to 
begin to understand — to begin to under- 
stand, and to fill with nameless gripping 
doubts. Again he broke into frantic bel- 
lo wings; and this time he began to fire his 
gun. 

But the boys were well beyond the reach 
[ 245 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 

of it. The shot pattered into the water to 
the stern, splashing harmlessly. Could only 
those two chaloupes have been as impotent ! 
And the Twenty -footer still held fast, barely 
a yard of her through and clear. 

Ninny looked over his shoulder. And 
they could see in his eyes what they felt 
in their souls, it was too late to do more 
with boulders. Their blood seemed to stop 
with their breath. And then Tools, past 
master of ideas, had one which he should 
have had long minutes before. He pitched 
himself leaping over the bows, and, still 
holding to the painter, dropped in on the 
down-stream side of that opposing chain. 
In a moment Jack, seizing the idea, had 
followed him. The sudden, answering lift 
from the lightened weight carried the lun- 
ging boat another two feet through. 

By now the first of the chaloupes was 
near enough for them to distinguish the 
voices in her. And high over all came the 
exhortations of Irish Mike. “Quit yer 
[ 246 ] 


THE BOOM ONCE MORE 


bull-bellowin’, I tell ye, an’ pull. They 
got it up their sleeves to slip us yit. Pull, 
ye fools! Pull! Pull! Pull!” 

“You chaps stay in and steer,” shouted 
Jack, in a strangle of excitement. And, 
he on the one side, Tools on the other, and 
Ninny setting his herculean triceps almost 
underneath, they put their whole united 
strength to it. The beautiful craft rose, 
hesitated, rose again, and then came 
through as if on oil! 

Jack, still on her starboard, and Tools 
on her port, balanced each other as they 
tumbled sloshingly in over the gunwales. 
Ninny, knowing his weight, came over the 
stern. 

At that moment, the first chaloupe 
arrived. Her yard-wide hulking nose struck 
the boom with a smash which toppled half 
those “hard-heads” back into the river, 
and shot every second oarsman neck and 
crop over his seat into the bilge. The 
other chaloupe , for her part, made a des- 
[ 247 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


perate, last-minute attempt to put about. 
As a result, the first got it again from her. 
And in her turn half the crew of that 
second chaloupe piled up together in the 
scuppers. 

But whether they sat in the bilge or kept 
to the thwarts, at the sight of the Twenty- 
footer on the other side of the boom, it 
may be said with truth that in the case 
of a certain rampaging gang of North 
Woods spruce cutters, mere words were of 
avail to them no longer! 

“ I’m afraid,” said Jack, — and the Four 
even backed up a little for purposes of 
conversation, — “I’m afraid you may have 
to go in by the shanties and portage. 
Somebody seems to have left something 
in the way.” 

“Thank ye!” Irish Mike was polite to 
the last. “Thank ye!” he responded with 
unction, and felt feelingly of the back of his 
head. “Now that ye call me attintion to it, 
I do seem to see somethin’ lyin’ along. 

[248] 


9tkW% 



Somebody seems to have left something in the way.” page 248. 




































THE BOOM ONCE MORE 


An’ gobs, if ye’d only troubled to let us 
know in time that ye had a flyin’ machine, 
maybe we cud ’a’ notified the gover’ment 
an’ had the obstruction removed.” 

And then, as if her cedar heart told her 
that no craft this side of Wantebec could 
catch her now, the Twenty-footer reached 
forward in a long leap, and started on her 
run down-river. 


[ 249 ] 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 


DOWN-RIVER 

f* II ^IIERE is no great story to be told 
about the remainder of that first 
night. They covered almost ten 
miles before they halted. And they did 
not even make a fire. They dragged 
themselves out of the Twenty-footer, pulled 
her up, spread their blanket sleeping-bags 
where the ground seemed to be softest, 
and slept like the rocks around them till 
the sun was high. 

Then, before they thought of breakfast, 
they put another good five miles behind 
them. They might seem to be far enough 
below the spruce shanties and the Reserva- 
tion by now, but they wanted to feel abso- 
lutely sure. Once they were so, they 
began to think of breakfast in earnest. 

[ 250 ] 


DOWN-RIVER 


And then they had a chance , to realize just 
what their commissariat was. 

There were five of them. Ahead of 
them was a week’s journey; and to do it 
they had precisely twenty-seven pilot bis- 
cuits, and between two and three pounds 
of flour, with a few handfuls of salt, which, 
through everything, had remained in two 
of the lockers of their boat. They had not 
even their trolling lines and fishing-rods. 
As for the Twenty-two, which had pro- 
vided food before, it had terminated its 
usefulness, though with all honors, in the 
hands of Jombateest. And let it be said 
at once that the diary of that week’s run 
down-river was the chronicle of a hunger 
which grew, and whetted itself, and hourly 
intensified until at times it became some- 
thing which made cannibalism seem one of 
the easiest things in the world. 

The first day, however, Ninny’s bow 
began to get them gray squirrels. And 
the first evening Bud decided to make 
[ 251 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


some dumplings. They were making their 
squirrels into a stew, and that suggested 
it to him. With his mother no stew was 
complete without them. There was this 
about dumplings, too, he said: they might 
look mighty small in the dough, but as soon 
as they were in the pot they began to swell. 
They showed a lot of bulk, and filled you 
up, and that was the kind of grub they 
were needing just at present. 

But Bud’s dumplings didn’t work out 
like that. As a stirring bowl he had noth- 
ing to use but the tin locker the flour had 
been in, and he seemed to have mixed in 
too much water. By the time he had let 
it stand on the fire awhile, it had thickened 
up all right, but a good deal of ashes had 
got in. And when at last he had got his 
flour into balls, its color wasn’t right. It 
would have been fine for putty; but it 
was a good deal off hue for dumplings. 
However, he began to put them in, though 
he didn’t put all of them in at once, be- 
[ 252 ] 


DOWN-RIVER 


cause, as he explained again, what with 
their expansion they’d shove everything 
else out of the pot, once they had begun to 
rise. 

They didn’t shove anything else out of 
the pot, and they didn’t even rise! And 
when no one was able to wait any longer 
for the squirrel part of the stew, he sharp- 
ened a stick and speared one of them out 
and examined it. On the outside it was 
of a kind of greasy slipperiness. In the 
inside you could take a guess whether it 
was cooked or not; but it looked just as 
putty-like as when it had gone in. Bud 
alone ate any of them; and when asked 
how they tasted, he refused to answer. 

It was a bad night altogether for Bud. 
And the first part was bad for all of them. 

They had no tent now, of course. They 
hadn’t gone to any great bother in pitching 
camp, and shortly before twelve it began 
to rain. The only thing to do was to carry 
up the Twenty-footer, take everything out 
[ 253 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


of her, turn her over, prop her up face 
down with sticks and foot-rests, and get 
under. That gave them a roof over their 
heads, at any rate. But Jack said, un- 
happily, that he’d like to have had a roof 
over his feet, as well. Meanwhile the rain 
came down harder and harder. 

Two minutes of lying flat convinced all 
concerned that that was not the proper 
posture. First, as Jack had discovered, 
there was no room for the legs if the 
head and shoulders were to be in shelter; 
secondly, the ground was now distressingly 
mushy, and every moment it was becom- 
ing more so; thirdly, the position in gen- 
eral was horribly cramping. 

Tools began to draw in his knees, but 
to turn over he had to hump up like a 
rising camel. His back caught one of the 
seats. And the Twenty-footer, uncertain 
enough on its supports at best, swung half 
around and shot forward about ten feet! 

When, at length, they had got under 
[ 254 ] 


DOWN-RIVER 


again, “Ah, say, Jack,” groaned Bookie, 
“I haven’t got room for both your feet in 
my ear. Couldn’t you stick one of them 
into somebody else’s, only for a minute or 
two?” 

Tools was now using his head as a roof- 
tree, with the middle seat resting heavily 
on the back of his neck. “Say,” he said, 
“there aren’t enough of us in here. Don’t 
you think, if we advertised, we could get 
some boarders?” 

“The fire’s going down. If anybody 
had any self-sacrifice in him, he’d get out 
and—” 

The response came with electrifying sud- 
denness. Emitting a shriek that seemed 
to make the Twenty-footer jump, herself, 
and with one wild kick and double plunge 
which shot her forward and down upon 
Tools’ occipital bone, Bud flung himself 
out from under. 

Eating dumplings such as he had eaten 
might explain much. But it was hardly 
[ 255 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


explanation enough for this. “Gosh, Bud- 
dy, what’s the matter? What’s — ” 

He stood a moment, jerking and shudder- 
ing. Then, with another shriek, he threw 
up his arms and legs, and started in a kind 
of delirious jumping- jack movement around 
the hissing fire. 

“Jinks, he’s got a fit, or something.” 
And they all began to get themselves fear- 
fully out from under. 

“Oh, take it out!” Bud yelled, “Take 
it out!” And manifestly he was not refer- 
ring to dumplings. He had got down on all 
fours, by then, too, and was apparently 
trying to butt holes into the ground. 
Then he threw a hand behind him, and 
clawed at the back of his neck. Finally, he 
tried desperately to fling his heels into the 
air. 

“Oh,” he cried, “I can’t do it myself. 
Get hold of my feet and jerk.” 

Then, and then only, they began to 
understand. They seized his ankles, lifted 
[ 256 ] 


DOWN-RIVER 


him by main force, shook with all their 
strength, and a big green frog dropped 
from his collar. He saw it himself as it 
fled for its life down the bank. 

“Jinks,” he said tremulously, “I — 
thought it was a snake!” 

They piled on more wood, and got the 
fire into a roaring blaze again. For a while 
they believed they had had the last of their 
sleep that night. But the rain gradually 
stopped, their clothes dried out, and Bud 
got the shudders out of himself by degrees. 
One by one they lay down again. None of 
them had any desire to make further use 
of the Twenty -footer. And in the end they 
once more fell asleep. 

Ninny was up before sunrise. However 
he found it, he located a raspberry patch, 
and when he came back he had an impro- 
vised birch-bark basket brimming full. 
They were a trifle wet and soggy. But 
they meant breakfast. And with so much 
at least to say grace over, they set forth 
[257] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


again. What were they going to have for 
dinner and supper? Pilot biscuits, if they 
had to eat them. But they knew that 
they must not begin to break in on them 
save as a last resource. And they had 
begun to put faith in Ninny as a provider. 
It was with good reason. That night he 
provided them with a porcupine stew. 

He had seemed to understand from the 
beginning that there was a shortness in 
the provision train. Jack showed him 
exactly what they had, so that, when he 
was cut down to half rations with the rest 
of them, he might not misunderstand. 
But he needed no showing. To tell the 
truth, for the last three years Ninny’s 
whole life had been one almost unbroken 
experience of short rations; with him, such 
a condition had come to be almost a matter 
of course. But it was an experience which 
had taught him to keep his eyes constantly 
open to every chance to fill the larder. 

There were the four of them to row. 

[ 258 ] 


DOWN-RIVER 


They were going with the current now. 
And, following Doctor Gordon’s instruc- 
tions, they had simply made a place for 
Ninny in the stern, giving him nothing to 
do but fill it with a mind at peace. But, 
from the first moment, he had kept that 
redoubtable bow of his beside him. And 
never for a moment did he cease to watch 
river and shore ahead. On that second 
day down they were just about to swing in 
and make camp, when he gave a sort of 
tongue click. It brought them up with 
the oars poised. 

He pointed straight down towards a 
little bay. They saw nothing there, but 
at the sparkle that snapped under his 
shaggy brows they dropped in the oars 
again, and pulled for all there was in them. 
Another low click brought them to a halt 
again. And now, as they craned about to 
port, they could make out something just 
backing up from the stony beach. 

Ninny was fitting arrow to thong. In- 
[ 259 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


deed, they all of them tried to get at their 
bows. And the drift of the boat was bring- 
ing them every moment nearer. Yet they 
were still so far away that for all they knew 
the creature might have been an otter, 
or even a wolverene — if any wolverene 
would have remained so long. 

But it was a porcupine, and now it had 
seen them, and at once it began to move 
more quickly. Jack swung the Twenty- 
footer around so that they could shoot 
clear. There was a z-zipp! Ninny’s first 
bolt had sped already. 

According to all the stories, when Robin 
Hood used his long bow, he took aim de- 
liberately; he even made calculations as 
to wind and trajectory. Ninny did not 
shoot like that. His first arrow was still 
cutting the air when another was following 
it. And the first kicked up the gravel just 
below the beast. What the actual distance 
was, the Four could not have said. But 
not one of their arrows even arrived on 
[ 260 ] 


DOWN-RIVER 


shore. The porcupine started to run, and 
Ninny’s second arrow pinged a few inches 
to the right of it. He simply caught his 
shafts from across his knee, and again and 
again threw up the bow, and, if he aimed 
at all, it must have been in an eye-flash. 
His third landed where the beast had been 
an instant before. The fourth tumbled it 
head over heels. But again it was up and 
running. The Four sat spellbound. The 
range was three times what it had been in 
the keep. And, even there, he had never 
done shooting like this. Yet his arrows 
were following each other as fast as he could 
bend the hickory. The fifth turned the 
animal again, and the sixth killed it as if 
with a half -ounce ball. In fact, good rifle- 
shooting itself could not have done much 
better. 

The little bay where that porcupine had 
been drinking with results so fatal to itself 
offered a very good camping ground. And 
they stayed there for the night. They 
[261 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


made up their minds to do a little more 
towards making themselves snug than they 
had the night before. They got to work, 
with their jack-knives and the hand-ax, 
to build a windbreak with overhang enough 
to give them shelter. And Ninny retired 
a little way up the beach with his knife and 
the porcupine. He seemed to take it for 
granted that it was his place to do all jobs 
of that kind. 

The one cooking pot they had brought 
down with them would plainly not be big 
enough; so they decided to use another of 
those tin lockers. They took the biggest 
one the Twenty-footer had to offer. It 
wasn’t the shape of any commonplace 
kitchen utensil. It had three flat sides 
and one round. And it was a great deal 
larger than most kitchen utensils, if you ex- 
cept wash-boilers. But, again, size was what 
they wanted. It would be the first really 
satisfying meal they’d had in days. Any 
smaller pot would have been nowhere at all. 

[ 262 ] 


DOWN-RIVER 


They had the pot, and now Ninny came 
back with the porcupine; it might just as 
well have been rabbit, only, thank provi- 
dence, it was bigger. And when they had 
taken it for granted that salt would be the 
only added ingredient, Jack had an inspira- 
tion and proposed a flavoring of sassafras. 
Sassafras sounded good, and enough went 
in to season an elephant stew. 

Few people have eaten porcupine, and 
few have eaten stewed sassafras. And, to 
be truthful about it, whether it was the 
sassafras that flavored the porcupine or 
the porcupine that flavored the sassafras, 
it wasn’t like anything any of the Four had 
ever tasted previously. But they ate it. 
They licked the last bone. And they had 
a struggle to bring themselves to leave a 
little of the broth to start the next day 
upon. They had already learned that 
raspberries, for breakfast and dinner both, 
are a trifle lacking in filling qualities. 

Once more they turned to and finished 
[263 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


their windbreak. On that windward side 
of the fire there were already almost bushes 
enough to make it. But they bent them 
over by piling the weight of other spruce 
and cedar branches on top. They cut out 
the bottom ones with the hatchet, and 
wattled them in higher up to make the 
whole hold tight. Then they dragged the 
Twenty -footer out of the water again; but 
this time she was going to serve only in 
part as a roof. They stood her on her side 
at an angle with the windbreak, piled logs 
behind her till she was as solid as a rock, 
and, when they had bedded down the whole 
inside with more spruce and cedar branches, 
they had something between a cave and a 
chimney-corner ! As they made themselves 
comfy in a row there, too, they could look 
out over the whole width of the starlit 
river. 

About ten they carried up their last 
armfuls of driftwood, and, opening their 
sleeping-bags, they spread themselves full 
[ 264 ] 


DOWN-RIVER 


length in that cozy, shell-like hollow. 
There was no sign of rain; they knew they 
would have no trouble sleeping now. Bud 
produced his mouth-organ — Tools had 
lost his long ago — and once more they 
had a little music. The river murmured 
them a lullaby. 

The trouble was that they slept too well. 
Some time after one Jack awoke with a 
start and slapped wildly at his knee. A 
big spark had fallen on it. A little wind 
had blown up. But, with Ninny’s help, he 
rolled some granite “nigger-heads” between 
the fire and the row of sleeping-bags; and 
he was turning in again, when, from some- 
where far off in the bush there came out a 
long, faint “ Yiau-yiaull!” It was almost 
exactly like the challenging battle-cry of a 
tom-cat on a back fence. But it was 
fiercer and deeper chested. 

Next minute it came again. And evi- 
dently there were two of the beasts. 
Ninny’s eyes were glittering. Jack poked 
[ 265 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


at Bud. “Hi, you frog hotel, wake up and 
get ready to be eaten alive!” 

And another long chest note, much 
louder and nearer, made it very plain that 
the animals were coming straight towards 
them. Tools and Bookie sat up with 
horrified jerks, in their turn. 

“Oh, it’s only a tiger or two,” said Jack. 
“What are you excited about?” 

But they were all of them looking to see 
what Ninny was going to do. He had 
made for his bow again; and they immedi- 
ately got their hands on their own. 

They knew, of course, that they had to 
do either with a pair of wild cats, or with a 
pair of Canada lynx. The twin screeches 
went up again, now a great deal closer. 
No one not a nature-faker had ever imagined 
such animals attacking a camp. But every 
time those two hideous ' screams went up, 
four “Argue-nots ” looked at each other with 
a creeping, cold, chill discomfort which grew 
in spite of them. Bookie piled more wood 
[ 266 ] 


DOWN-RIVER 


on the fire, but he didn’t go far away to 
gather it. 

“Do we heliograph for help?” asked 
Tools, and his grin was a trifle forced. 

They tried to peer into the blackness of 
the bush behind them. But their eyes, 
blinded by the glare of the firelight, could 
hardly make out what lay behind the 
nearest tree. 

Again that blood-curdling “ Yiau-yiaull ! ” 

“Fine!” said Bud. “They ought to get 
you lads into the choir.” But he didn’t 
even laugh himself. The beasts were now 
only a few hundred yards away. What 
were they after, anyhow? Supposing they 
were mad? In that case, they would at- 
tack a hundred people! 

“Let’s get sort of back to back, so we 
can watch out in every direction,” said 
Bookie, now in a goose-flesh all over. 
They kept drawing their bows, and ner- 
vously slacking them off again. 

“Hough! Gar-h!” This time that con- 
[267] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


vulsingly horrid double snarl came from 
the other side of the camp. They looked 
to see two pairs of flickering green lamps 
behind the Twenty-footer. But the big 
cats were no longer coming straight at them. 
They were circling fiercely about, seemingly 
trying to make up their minds to get be- 
tween the camp and the shore. 

“Why,” said Jack, with a genuine relief, 
“of course it’s the remains of that porky 
that’s brought them down ! Wherever 
Ninny put them, that’s their idea of an 
early breakfast.” 

And an instant light of agreement on the 
face of Ninny showed that the explanation 
was the right one. 

Apparently, too, the beasts had in the 
meantime circled back, passed the camp on 
the other side, and had now found what 
they were looking for. A new note began 
to go up from them. And once more it 
was precisely the same sound, or sounds, 
as a house cat might make when eating, 
[ 268 ] 


DOWN-RIVER 


the same deep, guzzling growls of warning 
at any one who might think of breaking in 
upon the banquet. 

Ninny put up his hand, and began to slip 
lightly out through the shadows. Still keep- 
ing their bows ready, and stepping wher- 
ever he stepped, they followed. As their 
eyes began to get the fire blink out of them, 
they, too, could begin to see a little. At 
the clump of sassafrass from which Jack 
had flavored their supper, Ninny dropped 
stealthily to his knees, and commenced to 
work his way around. On hands and knees 
they followed again. And now they could 
see that the night wasn’t really so very 
black after all. It was only the fire that 
made it seem so. Above them was a misty 
sprinkle of stars; in fact, they did not see 
how they could help being seen themselves. 
But it was plain that they were not. And 
in another moment they could make out 
the outlines of both animals distinctly. 
They were lynx, as big as bulldogs; and 
[ 269 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


they could doubtless have handled a dozen 
ordinary dogs between them. Ninny made 
a motion towards his right; he wanted 
them to spread out so they might all have 
a chance to use the bow. They did it as 
quickly as they could, and then he gave 
his little click. 

Both beasts whirled at it, their hair up 
and their jaws wide, and every arrow 
was loosed at once. How many hit they 
never knew. But one animal went over 
backwards as if throwing a flip-flap; it was 
probably Ninny’s bolt that got him. But, 
next moment, scrambling to his feet with 
a screech that made all preceding it seem 
almost sweet to the ear, he followed his 
fellow at split-the-wind time back into the 
bush again. 

There are certain things you can’t kill 
with blunt-headed wooden arrows, no 
matter how well you may shoot. But, at 
any rate, it had been one more night to 
remember. 


[ 870 ] 


CHAPTER TWENTY 


ALMOST THE LAST 


F any further proof had been needed 
that Ninny’s mind had begun to come 
back to him, it could have been found 
in this. As, daily, they drew nearer and 
nearer home, he became more and more 
nervous. He had begun to remember 
things; and doubtless he remembered what 
it was that had led him to run away — 
the brainless cruelty which had accused 
the simple soul of starting the great fire 
in Mill Bend. 

Just as that wild, fighting excitement of 
those last few hours in the keep had cleared 
his mind of half its fogs, now the steady 
feeling of comradeship and support was 
clearing away the rest. And now, as mem- 
ory came back to him, he began to think of 
Wantebec and Mill Bend with fear. What 
[271 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


awaited him there? He showed a growing 
dread of going any further. Save for Jack, 
the night they camped under the stars at 
Bass Island he would have slipped away 
and pushed miserably back for the North 
Woods once more. For hours Jack played 
the part of a little big brother to him. 
And it was only the constant reassurances, 
the repeated pats and hand-clasps of all 
four of them, that kept him with them to 
the last. 

Perhaps, too, the feeling — and he must 
have had it — that they could hardly 
have got down without him, helped a little. 
They were on quarter rations when they 
weren’t on half; and it was Ninny who 
provided the supplies for that. Twice he 
caught a “big-mouth,” or channel bass, 
by “groping.” He stood in deep water 
for the better part of an evening, as motion- 
less as the old snag he was holding to; but 
he was successful in the end. He shot 
more squirrels. There weren’t many along 
[ 272 ] 


ALMOST THE LAST 


the river. But it is safe to say that none 
that once came within range of that bow 
of his ever got away from him. He knocked 
them out of tree-tops when the boys could 
hardly see them. By the time they had 
passed the West Branch they could shoot 
pretty well themselves. But it was almost 
always Ninny who brought home the food. 
And when, in the heat of midday they 
lay up on shore, and the Four were giving 
themselves a rest which they felt they 
couldn’t have kept up the pace without, 
Ninny would invariably be hunting up the 
nearest raspberry patch, and adding to the 
larder from it. If you want to learn just 
how much provender is needed to sustain 
life in even a partial degree of happiness, 
just make yourself one of five who have 
been set the task of rowing a hundred miles, 
with or against the current, with practically 
nothing in your boat at the beginning. 

Generally they had stews, because, as 
pointed out already, you’re always sure 
[ 273 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


of getting the most out of anything when 
you stew it. But one night, when they 
had made an unusually big squirrel-killing, 
they tried the method of cookery invented 
by men who work in lime-kilns. They 
took five of their squirrels, dressed and 
salted them, wrapped them in basswood 
leaves, and rolled the whole in balls of blue 
clay, which could be had almost anywhere 
along the shore. Then, working those 
little clay ovens just under the surface of 
the sandy beach, they made their fire above 
them. The length of time they had to 
wait was a great trial. But when the 
time did come, they had a dinner well 
worth waiting for. As Bookie said, he 
didn’t think they’d be hungry again — till 
next morning. 

While making Half Mile Carry they saw 
partridges; but they got none of them, 
and they prepared for their last day’s run. 
Ahead of them was the gleaming blue of 
Eleven Mile Lake. It was almost like 
[274 ] 


ALMOST THE LAST 


home water now. And lying at the end of 
the portage was something that fairly 
suggested civilization — a perfectly new 
wash-board spoon, and a linen-twist troll, 
at least sixty yards of it. Some fishing 
party had lost it; and such things belong 
to those who find them. 

“We’ve had our luck in Eleven Mile,” 
said Tools, “but we might as well drop it 
in on chance.” 

It was a very hot day. The afternoon 
was far spent, and whereas they had been 
able to sail coming up, now what little 
wind there was, was against them. To 
add to that they had gradually been taking 
reefs in their belts, until, by now, there were 
moments when they felt that it was only 
those belts that held them together. Ninny 
took one pair of oars and rowed, and they 
were glad enough of that help. He had 
put away his bow; you can’t shoot anything 
in the middle of a lake. And they were 
rather wobegonely arguing the question of 
[ 275 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


trying to make Wantebec that night, by 
lying up for an hour or so, and doing the 
rest after dusk, when their argument came 
to an end. 

Whoosh ! What had happened in that 
same place a month before was going to 
happen again! Smack! R oomph! 

“Oh, Jemima!” And fifty feet behind 
them, hooked clean, the very leviathan of 
lunges shot fiercely into the air. He curved 
his five-foot length into a glittering 
mackerel-gray rainbow, and, striking the 
water broadside, plunged for the bottom! 
He was bigger, there was no doubting it, 
than their first! 

“Csesar!” said Tools. “He’s no fish at 
all. He’s an alligator!” 

Jack had grasped the oars again, and to 
ease the tension was backing water. 

A really big muskellunge is the scourge 
of the dark green deeps in which he lurks. 
Wo to the perch or sunfish or bass that 
passes the waving, weedy ambush where 
[276 ] 


ALMOST THE LAST 


he lies! Even his own offspring keep to 
the shallows till they are too big to tempt 
those gray-wolf jaws. And, once again, 
when he comes to the hook, it is not his 
bull-like strength which amazes the fisher- 
man, but his pure ferocity of temper. 
When that long, protruding under jaw has 
closed upon something which it can neither 
swallow nor let go, the giant pike seems to 
gasp for a moment unbelievingly, then to 
go crazy with rage. It is not pain. The 
callouses on a ditcher’s palms are not more 
insensible to the pins he will stick through 
them than the sinew and bone plates of a 
’lunge’s mouth are to the barbs of the troll- 
ing spoon. If he breaks away once, he 
will often grab at the glittering “wash- 
board” again not five minutes afterwards, 
and be hauled in at last with the marks 
from his former experience still ragged upon 
his jaws. 

The story of that second fish-fight cannot 
be told at length. As in the first, they all 
[ 277 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


had a chance to hold the line against the 
monster, and in turn they all had enough of 
it. Ninny took hold at last, and the brunt 
of the battle fell upon him. At times, 
with straining knees, he braced himself 
against a dead, stubborn, unbroken pull 
that lasted for two minutes. Then, as the 
pressure eased for a moment, — though 
my lord lucius had merely turned savagely 
on his course again, — Ninny was able to 
get in a few yards of welcome slack. But, 
an instant later, as the brute went off in a 
headlong rush that mocked at all resistance, 
that slack was swiftly lost again; or, 
changing tactics, the fish would sound, 
and go straight down thirty feet to the 
bottom like a pig of lead. Ninny, chuck- 
ling grimly, held to it, and the others 
felt the sweat come out on them anew, even 
from watching it. 

Yet, in those minutes, the air itself was 
growing strangely cool; and, when next 
the boat went about to starboard, all four 
[ 278 ] 


ALMOST THE LAST 


boys found themselves staring at the sky. 
The whole east had become one wide, 
blue-black ink blot. And over everything 
it was as if a pall of deathly quiet had been 
lowered. 

“Jinks, I guess we’d better be making 
for shore.” 

“What, and lose our fish?” 

“We’ll be taking a chance if we stay.” 

“How long is it going to take now. 
Ninny, do you think?” 

Again their fish jumped, the whole five 
feet of him, by way of answer. He was 
good for another hour of it. 

A deep growl of thunder came muttering 
across the lake. And the very shallowness 
of these fresh-water northern lakes makes 
them very dangerous. A sea can blow up 
in a matter of minutes, almost of seconds. 

“We’d better put for shore,” said Jack 
again. “We can tow him after us, if 
he’ll tow; if not, we’ll have to let him 
go.” 


[ 279 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


“Aw, rats! We can risk it for another 
minute or so, anyway.” 

But that pall of silence and blackness 
had become like nightfall. And now it 
began to be fitfully lighted up by a swift 
succession of those sickly and uncertain 
lightning flickers which herald the hurricane ! 
Below, it was blacker and blacker. Above, 
it was fringed with the swiftly traveling 
gray that means wind and rain together. 

There was no time to make shore now, 
even had they been wise enough to change 
their minds. Ninny rapidly knotted the 
line about a thwart. If the fish was held, 
well and good; if not, he could go, and 
welcome! Bookie, at his end of the boat, 
could hardly see Tools, who had been steer- 
ing. And, next moment, they got ■ it, 
in one shattering crash, and a white glare 
that brought out every rush and tree now 
bending under the wind that followed. 

The surface of the lake flattened, then 
lifted itself into waves that seemed to fling 
[ 280 ] 


ALMOST THE LAST 


themselves after one another. The Twenty- 
footer was shipping water by the pailful 
before Ninny could get her under way. 
Jack, crawling forward, took the other pair 
of oars. The drenching rain was nothing 
compared with the spray that whipped 
them, sheet on sheet. Even if it had been 
possible to speak, they could not have 
heard each other. Tools, at the rudder 
lines, held her with the wind. If they had 
got into the trough, they would have been 
over in a moment. The question was, 
could they get anywhere before they had 
filled up now? Once swamped, there would 
be no chance at all. The best swimmer in 
the world can’t do anything when the water 
is being thrown over his head. The light- 
ning itself was danger enough; yet now 
they hardly thought of that. They were 
all of them pale and silent. Bookie and 
Bud began to bail. They might almost as 
well have sat doing nothing. 

For the barest trice Ninny took his eyes 

[281 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


from his oars, his glance swept the whole 
scene, and then, as if with his chin, he 
pointed towards the very center of the lake! 

He wanted them to swing off in that 
direction. And there, as the lightning 
showed them, there seemed to be nothing 
but whitecaps. Yet that was what he 
meant! And he was already getting an 
angle on the water by putting all his giant 
strength behind his right oar. 

But for the fact that he had shown them 
how true his instincts were so many times 
already, this was a case where they could 
never have followed him. It seemed cer- 
tain death; and as it was, Tools, gasping 
at the rudder lines, hesitated for a moment; 
he looked at Bud. Bud nodded whitely, 
and their steersman hauled her off to port 
and let Ninny give all his strength to pulling 
the oars. 

Twice they were so nearly troughed that 
only the pure seagoing qualities of the 
Twenty-footer brought them back keel 
[ 282 ] 


ALMOST THE LAST 


down. But if Ninny thought the best 
place was the center of the lake, he could 
have it. Tools set his right arm against 
the port line and kept it there. There 
seemed mighty little chance of them ever 
getting out of it alive in any case. 

They were none of them ever to forget 
the next five minutes. They were so nearly 
swamped — the Twenty-footer was so full 
— that they really were swamped when 
they arrived. Then they realized the 
truth: they were in shoal water, on one 
of the big sand-bars they had found on the 
way up ! All they had to do was to tumble 
out, and, standing knee-deep, hold the 
Twenty-footer where she was till the blow 
was over. 

When they had thought or leisure in 
their thankfulness to remember something 
else, they found that the ’lunge had come 
along with them. The line caught about 
Jack’s legs and almost upset him. He 
felt down into the bottom of the boat, got 
[ 283 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


hold of the hatchet, and gave the monster 
the coup de grace before he began once more 
to bail. 

Another half hour, and they were safe 
ashore. 


[ 284 ] 


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 

THE LAST 


F you have ever learned what it means 
to acquire a real hunger, you will 
know that the first meal at home, or 
even the first five or six, can merely take 
the edge off it. A hunger it has taken a 
week to acquire is something that can be 
worn down and got safely under control 
only by day after day of unrelaxing thought 
and application. In a word, you have 
almost to live in the pantry. 

In the case of those four “ Argue-nots” 
they were still eating, with only a pause 
now and then for less important things, 
when, some two weeks after their home- 
coming, a party arrived from those shanties 
at Loggers’ Inlet. It consisted of Irish 
Mike, Cash-down, Jombateest, and two 
other Frenchmen; and late that night 
[285 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


they all gloomily boarded a box car for 
the west. And for the big Irishman, at 
any rate, there was, in the hearts of the 
Four, a kind of unacknowledged fondness 
and regret. They saw him only from across 
the street. He wagged a comprehensive 
hand at them, and feelingly pointed to 
his head. “Gobs,” he said, “I can hang 
me hat on it annywheres yit!” Again, 
be it set down, he was a man capable of 
better things. And, indeed, we have some 
reason for believing that when the Four 
were next to have word of him, the news 
was of the sort one likes to hear. 

As additional evidence that boss Halle- 
well was again in control, with Uncle Billy 
McLeash’s next trip south there came 
down the “Argue-not” tent and camp- 
stove. And, before the snow flew, the 
Club saw them stowed away in big new 
private lockers of their own. 

To the Club, too, as a special gift, went 
Ninny’s famous bow, where it is now the 
[ 286 ] 


THE LAST 


central and chiefmost trophy. About 
those club-room walls four other bows had 
likewise been suspended; and each was 
surrounded by its blazon of arrows, which 
arrows, though they are of the most ordi- 
nary and amateurish make, seem to possess 
a potency for the revival of Lunge Lake 
memories that bids fair to last forever. » 
Yet, hanging even higher in affection, 
may also be seen the once more repaired 
and readjusted Twenty-two. It must be 
said, however, that the logic of that Port 
Arthur experience was against having that 
small, much-suffering weapon touched at 
all. For — and the thought was one to 
hold — it had shown its highest value 
when it was dangerous only to him who 
attempted to make use of it! Might not 
much be done towards the discouragement 
of actual war (we mean, of course, the 
great and glorious sort, with the gold lace 
and epaulets and military bands), if it were 
well understood in advance that every 
[ 287 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


time a man pulled the trigger of a magazine 
rifle, or gave the word for the firing of a 
twelve-inch gun, he would himself, by 
way of distinction and as an inevitable 
first result, lose a nose, or an ear at least? 

Considering that the treasure-trove from 
that Great Bear Island mound was so far 
beyond even Bookie’s dreams, it was only 
natural and befitting that the boys should 
go with it to Major Maggs and tell him 
frankly that it really belonged to him. It 
was no less natural and befitting that the 
major, with a single magnificent gesture, 
should wave such a thought a thousand 
miles away. “But if,” and he made the 
suggestion only to ease their minds, “if, 
when they came to arrange and set up 
those pots, axes, arrowheads, et cetera , in 
their already admirable museum, they 
should care to distinguish them by some 
such label, say, as ‘From the Maggs 
Presentation,’ he could, of course, offer 
no insuperable objection to that. . . . 

[ 288 ] 


THE LAST 


Furthermore, far from being in the slight- 
est degree astonished by the results of the 
expedition, he would merely recall — and 
possibly his words would now contain a sig- 
nificance somewhat greater than they had 
had before — that upon the occasion of their 
departure, he had, in a word, clearly pre- 
dicted the discoveries they had made. 

“And, gentlemen,” — by this time the 
major’s hands were once more in the very 
strongest alliance beneath his coat-tails, — 
“and, gentlemen, when there has been 
established upon those upper Wantebec 
islands that northwestern Chautauqua 
which I have with no less certitude foreseen, 
it will afford me some slight gratification, 
both as a man, an American, and a citizen 
of the world, to set aside that particular 
island upon which these epoch-making 
discoveries have been made as a small, 
but I trust not wholly invaluable, contri- 
bution to the demesne of our national 
parks!” 


[ 289 ] 


GREAT BEAR ISLAND 


There were those who said that the oppor- 
tunity to make a speech like that was 
worth the contents of an island to the major 
at any time. They were the same people 
who inquired of the doctor what he was 
going to do with Ninny, now that he had 
got him back. 

The doctor had already decided that. 
With the judge assisting, he refurnished 
Ninny’s old shack on Hunter’s Point. He 
gave it as his medical opinion that they 
could do no better than get Ninny back 
into it and among his Lares and Penates 
again at once. And there, in all happiness, 
he may now be found. Once more he has 
his old gum-box “skeps” of bees, and his 
nets, and traps, and fish-lines. Probably 
he will never attain to that strength of 
intellect which we feel to be so necessary 
in this world of guile. But it must be 
remembered that he did not possess it 
when he ran away. 

Nor has Wantebec yet bestowed any 
[ 290 ] 


THE LAST 


medal upon Ninny as its most valuable 
citizen. Wherefore, and because of that, 
he must have come to the conclusion that, 
like the major, he belongs in the class of 
“ citizens of the world.” In any case, his 
actions are certainly those of a man who 
feels himself in debt to all the world. 
When any of the hapless mill-folk across 
on the Bend need help which they cannot 
possibly pay for, — when there are movings 
to be made, or stoves to be put up, or drift 
logs to be hauled in, to Ninny — or Dinny, 
as he has been re-christened now — do 
they make recourse. And being the large 
and simple scatter-brain he is, he goes with 
them beamingly, and puts forth all his 
strength, and serves them joyously and 
with pride! 


THE END 



















tc A rattling circus story ” 


REDNEY McGAW 


By ARTHUR E. McFARLANE 

Author of “Great Bear Island, ” etc. 

Illustrated by Arthur W. Brown. $1.50 

The story is natural, overflows with humor, and will delight 
every healthy-minded lad. — Pittsburg Gazette Times. 

As vivid a circus story as one could read, full of quaint humor 
and cheerful philosophy, with a boy of the street as a hero. 

— New York Evening Post. 

“ Redney McGaw ” is a new character study of the American 
youngster that is fit to rank with “ Tom Sawyer. ” It is a book 
for boys, but anyone with a sense of humor will enjoy it. 

— Baltimore American. 

Redney McGaw should become a boy type, a household name. 
He is a very real personage . . . The tale is full of the live- 
liest action, and is told in a breezy style, the vivacity of which 
holds the attention by amusing the reader. 

— Philadelphia Public Ledger . 

If Tom Sawyer had met the hero of “ Redney McGaw” what 
a time the two would have had! Redney was a live one from 
New York who set out for a tramp to visit a friend in the West. 
He “ meets up ” with a circus bound in the same direction, gets 
a job as dishwiper, and there learns many wonderful things 
about circus life. Boys will love Redney. — Chicago Tribune. 


LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers 
34 Beacon Street, Boston 






‘3 iqff 































































. 






































. 


















One copy del. to Cat. Div. 


OCT 3 191 1 




